CBS News Catches Republicans in Dirty Trick

CBS Weekend News broadcast a solid view of desperate Republicans who know that they cannot win the 2008 presidential election unless they resort to dirty tricks. As I have written here since August, Republican operatives, many with ties to Rudolph Giuliani, have been attempting to place on the June 2008 California primary ballot an initiative that would change the way electoral college votes are allocated from the traditional "winner take all," to a proportional system that allocates electoral college votes by congressional district.

We all dislike the Electoral College, but this is just a simple dirty trick. If it were equitable, the Republicans would have joined with Democrats to sponsor such initiatives and legislative changes in all of the big states across the country. Even Governor Schwarzenegger, still officially a Republican, says "changing the rules in the middle of the game" is a "loser's mentality." And that's just what we see. If you can't beat 'em at the polls, change the rules, change the way you count votes, do anything but face reality.

The CBS story speaks for itself. It came about because dedicated online activists including a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara who is a diarist at Daily Kos, caught signature gatherers for the dirty trick initiative lying to students to get them to sign the petitions. They used children's cancer care as bait for to switch people to signing the dirty trick initiative. The Courage Campaign (disclosure: I am founder and chair) received a call from the intrepid blogger and activist. Our staffer, Erik Love, captured the whole sordid mess on video. You can see Erik's story here at Daily Kos.

This is one example of the mainstream media reporting the news, not reporting commentary masquerading as news. Have a look. And if you feel so inclined, check us out at the Courage Campaign to lend a hand.