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It is a shame that instead of trying to change minds, the Republicans are resorting to trying to keep people from voting:
Such ads don't suggest what Republicans would do if they replaced Democrats in office. Instead, they try to sow doubt among blacks about the sincerity and goodwill of white Democrats. Their primary purpose is not to win support for Republicans but to lose it for Democrats. As an anonymous leaflet placed on the cars of NAACP members at an October 4 meeting in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, put it, "Send Mark Pryor a strong message by casting your vote for Senator Tim Hutchinson or just not voting in that particular race [emphasis added]." Says St. Louis University political scientist Ken Warren, "The whole idea is to alienate blacks from their Democratic base so that they don't turn out and vote."(snip)
he second prong of this year's GOP efforts to suppress the minority vote has been widespread allegations of voter fraud in minority communities. Such efforts go back decades. In 1986, the Republican National Committee (RNC) devised a "ballot security program" that was used in Louisiana, Indiana, and Missouri. It was designed, in the words of an RNC memo, to "keep the black vote down considerably."
(snip)
Republicans outside Missouri have also been using allegations of fraud to intimidate potential minority voters. In Arkansas, where there are hotly contested Senate, gubernatorial, and House races, Republicans have already begun charging fraud. In Jefferson County--which is 40 percent black and in the middle of Democrat Mike Ross's district--a group of predominately black voters, who went to the county courthouse to cast their early ballots on October 21, were confronted by Republican poll watchers (including, reportedly, two Hutchinson staffers) who photographed them and demanded that they show identification--even though Arkansas law stipulates that poll watchers cannot ask voters to show identification. According to a witness cited by the Pine Bluff Commercial, several voters became frustrated and left. When Arkansas Democrats complained, Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Marty Ryall upped the ante, suggesting that Democrats were engaged in a "nationwide effort to steal elections and steal the Senate."
Likewise, in Georgia, Republican officials have announced a "fair elections task force" to monitor the polls in November. In South Dakota, Republican officials, citing several instances of forged registrations from Native Americans, have called on Attorney General Ashcroft to send federal election monitors to the state. And in Hidalgo County, Texas, Republicans are already crying fraud. In that county, heavily populated by Hispanics, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez has been actively registering voters. In the first three days of early voting, 4,969 people cast ballots compared to 1,705 in the last gubernatorial election. On October 23, Hidalgo County Republican Party Chairman Hollis Rutledge warned that the election system was "primed for fraud" and claimed that an organization called VoterViews found 16,000 dead or unqualified people on the Hidalgo voter rolls. Texas's Republican Secretary of State Gwyn Shea, however, said she had never heard of VoterViews and had not seen their report. (VoterViews is located at the Austin address of a precinct chairman of the Travis County Republican Party. I sent him an e-mail requesting a copy of the study but did not hear back from him.)
So, the GOP's strategy appears to be convince Blacks not to vote, and if they cannot be persuaded to stay away from the polls, do everything possible at the polls to scare Blacks away.
This not only shows a contempt for democracy, it also shows how bankrupt the Republican platform has become. Apparently, even the Republicans are conceding that they cannot convince enough people that their ideas are worth voting for. So, what's their answer? Compromise their ideas? Redouble their efforts at convincing people? No, is appears to be to try to keep people from exercising their most sacred right - the right to vote.
