Team Obama: Keep Calm Even If You Hear Republicans Are Winning

This is actually good advice for Republicans -- remember in 2000, all the networks, even Fox, called Florida before polls there were even closed.

The Republican-heavy Panhandle could vote until 8 PM Eastern, but the genius networks didn't know that, and insisted the polls shut down at 7 PM Eastern-- telling Republican voters in a densely-populated area of the state to not vote.

And then they compounded that by calling the state for Gore.

Telling Republicans the polls were closed when they were still open for another hour was one of the biggest dirty tricks played in the history of politics, and probably turned Florida from a clean Bush win into a very, very narrow, intensely disputed one.

In addition, claiming Bush had lost the election by 7 PM eastern undoubtedly poisoned the spirits of Republicans in more westerly states. And remember, that year, New Mexico was lost by Bush by something like a thousand total votes.

Wisconsin was also not called until the day after the election. People forget that. I did. I only know this because I spent last night reviewing the coverage of Election Night 2000.

While this is good advice, I have to wonder why Obama is offering it. Does he worry that early election day voting is going to go badly against him?

n a conference call this afternoon, President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign had one central message for their supporters when Election Day arrives tomorrow: They should “keep calm,” even if they hear snippets of information favoring Republican Mitt Romney.

“My warning, we need to stay calm for much of the day,” Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said, touting thousands of early ballots already submitted by voters. “We’ve already banked a pretty big portion of our vote.”

The fear, she explained, was early numbers leaking before voters have finished going to the polls, creating unnecessary panic and pessimism among Democrats.

By the way, I just got back from making calls for Romney. The place was packed with volunteers. And the people I called were enthusiastic about voting.

It's still not too late to get in touch with a Romney campaign office tomorrow-- they need people poll watching and working the strike lists and making sure that our voters get to the polls.

As I said earlier, I think the plan is to have people at the polls marking each Republican who votes, and then relaying these lists back to HQ, where volunteers will viciously harass gently remind voters that they really have to get off their couches and take a simple action in defense of the nation.

This may depend on the local call center, but even if you can only devote an hour or two to the cause, they probably need it.

Plus, it's kind of fun.

Call From Home: This'll get ya started. From TallDave.

posted by Ace at 09:41 PM

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