I find my stress level going up and up as we get closer to the election.  The only thing that calms me down is to go out and canvass.  Getting out in the fresh air, walking around, talking to people seems to do the trick.

I think I became a lot more reassured when Crist decided to keep the polls open later for early voting in Florida, and not just because of what it might mean for the end results in Florida. Rather, it helped walk me back off the ledge of fear of “what if they try to steal this thing again?”

Here’s my takeaway, for what it’s worth:

1) In 2000, the GOP was VERY unified and determined to take back the White House after eight years of their arch-enemy being in charge (why a free-market centrist dude like Clinton got under the GOP skin so much is beyond me, but obviously he did and still does). I don’t see that same kind of determination in the GOP today—look how many GOPers are either endorsing Obama or at least (Chuck Hagel) refusing to endorse McCain. The groundswell just isn’t on their side.

2) Look what happened to Katherine Harris in Florida and Blackwell in Ohio after 2000 and 2004. Sure, Harris served a term (or was it two terms?) in Congress for her district, but when she ran statewide for U.S. Senate, she got creamed, in part because of her role in the 2000 election. And Blackwell failed to land the GOP nomination for governor in Ohio in 2006, despite his corrupt services rendered in 2004, and I seriously doubt he will ever surface again in politics.

So what do these things tell me, combined with Crist’s decision? They tell me that no Republican governor or secretary of state is going to risk being tarred as a corrupt election-stealing hack for the sake of scamming votes for John McCain—certainly no governor or secretary of state who has any kind of aspirations for a larger national platform. And without the tacit support at that statewide level, it will be hard for a few lower-level crooks to swing a state’s electoral votes.

No one is going to fall on the sword to help the guy they don’t like all that much in the first place, not when the scrutiny on how cleanly the election is run state by state will be far more intense this year than in the past two cycles. Help McCain steal this one, and you kiss your political ass goodbye, particularly in a year when the GOP brand is already so heavily tarnished. Crist knows that, and I’m sure that’s one reason he told the GOP to fuck off—he’s not gonna let loyalty to the party mean that allegations of vote suppression get hung around his neck.

Do I think that there will be shenanigans? Sure. But I’d frankly suspect that they’d be more likely to come into play in close Congressional races than for the top of the ticket.

So that’s my comforting thought for the day. That, and the fact that I don’t think Obama would be as conciliatory and “for the good of the nation let’s stop this fight” as Gore and Kerry were (though I think each of those men had respectable reasons for going the way they did).

In short, one of the things I love about Obama is that he has this fantastic ability to tell an opponent “I’m not your bitch, bitch!” with a great big smile on his face.

As usual, great points, Kerry.  And Glix, thanks for the recommendation. Where do you live?

Well Kev, this might help reassure the nervous nellie’s ...

I’d tap that my friend ...

Hey, did you hear? <a href = “http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/mccain- to-appear-on-snl/#comments”>John McCain is going to be on SNL this weekend</a>! That should definitely make the poll numbers go up, for Obama.