So many of us are holding our breath till next Tuesday, praying that some time before midnight we will be like the green-faced soldiers of Oz gazing down on the wet, smoking remains of what used to be the Grand Ol' Party ("You killed her! All hail Howard Dean!") Yet we also know that we have won at least once, probably twice before but they've not only tweaked the tilt but also had the damn pinball machine built by their best friends to their precise specifications.
We all know by now that Bush Pioneers ran Diebold and that their voting machines can be rigged by a precocious middle schooler and that almost a half-dozen convicted felons serve in their management positions.
So before we get too cocky we can never underestimate the other side's capacity to cheat. If the recent histrionics from Rush Limbaugh ("stop your quaking, faker!") , Lynne Cheney ("Wolf, why do you want us all to die!"), Matt Drudge ("have you seen those Abercrombie & Fitch ads. Those boys are just beggin' for it.") and Rep. Barbara Cubin who, in return for being reminded that she took money from Jack Abramoff, said she wanted to slap her opponent right out of his wheelchair, you know that as long as there is breath in their lungs they will do whatever it takes to remain in power.
That's where Hugo Chavez comes to our rescue. According to the Miami Herald a Venezuelan company has jumped into the U.S. voting machine business. We have poked fun of Latin American democracies for generations, smug in the superiority and fairness of our own system and yet now the most radical one in the hemisphere is coming to our rescue. We can only hope that Hugo's machines unfairly tilt more votes Democratic than the Diebold machines tilt Republican. Cheeky Mr. Chavez, sniffing fire and brimstone wherever Bush has just been, might be just the man we need to break the spell cast over our kingdom -- I mean -- republic. href=" http://treyellis.com/blog/">
--Trey Ellis