AUSTIN, Texas -- Goody, goody, gumdrop. We could get Phil Gramm back again, this time as secretary of the treasury. Oh how I've missed that little ray of sunshine, the bleeding heart from Bryan, the man who thinks poor people are all fat. As author Jim Hightower used to say, if you need a heart transplant, try to get Phil Gramm's -- it's never been used.

Just what we need for treasury secretary: the banking industry's errand boy. The man who helped bring us Enron.

According to The Washington Post, President Bush wants a new economic team. Can't imagine why. Oh, here it is. It's "part of Bush's preparation for sending Congress an ambitious second-term domestic agenda." He wants someone "who can better relate to Congress and be more effective in dealing with financial markets and television interviewers."

There you have it -- Phil's perfect for the job. Mr. Charm. And he knows how to talk those seniors into getting rid of Social Security. He's in practice. He's been back here in Texas lobbying to make it legal to sell "dead peasant" life insurance to the Teacher Retirement System.

There have been many letters published in newspapers across America suggesting that those of us who opposed the reelection of George W. Bush should “get over it”. These writers usually go on to complain of liberals with long faces walking the streets, snarling and uttering profane and indefensibly leftist sentiments which cause immeasurable pain and suffering to these angels of conservative goodness. Such stories usually conclude with the suggestion that those who disagree with the latest Republican election fraud should leave the country posthaste.

I confess that I myself was seriously considering relocation to kinder and gentler shores. Then I realized that America has always been a place of struggle between those who believe in freedom, and those who would kidnap and hold it hostage to fear. There is no difference between the Red Scare of fifty years ago and the Orange Alerts of today.

Would it be possible to set up some kind of voluntary internet based check system, where people could show how they had voted and the results could be checked against their precincts?  There would have to be some kind of registration system to make sure people didn't try to tamper with the results by double voting, etc.  Is this doable?  I am wondering if there is some way we could by-pass the slowness of government to address the issues and do something ourselves.

  Phoebe Allison

Given the various "errors" and so forth in the polls, try on the following:

Professor Sam Wang's map with 311 Kerry votes to Bush 227, assumed Kerry with a Popular vote lead over Bush.

It also shows FLorida, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa and Ohio going to Bush.

Arkansas is not shown going to Bush, but is the "pinkest" state.

Well, we know the exit polls were wrong in some details.

How about this:

Bush led Kerry in the Popular vote.
But Kerry carried all the above states, plus Arkansas.
Bush's lead is about a million votes, give or take 900,000 up from that, or 240,000 down from that million.
Kerry carries all of his current states, plus:
Ohio
Iowa
New Mexico
Nevada
Florida
Arkansas.

That would put Kerry at 252 + 20 (OH) + IA (7) + NM (5) + NV (5) + FL (27) + AR (6) Electoral Votes =  322 Electoral Votes for Kerry, with Bush at a circa one million vote Popular lead.

In an election likely to be decided as much by voter turnout as by convincing the remaining undecided, how do we maintain the hope that’s necessary to keep making the phone calls, knocking on the doors, funding the key ads, and doing all the other critical tasks to get Bush out of office?

Even those of us working hard for change hit walls of doubt and uncertainty about whether our actions really matter. Our spirits rise and fall as if on a roller coaster with each shift in the polls. In a time when lies too often seem to prevail, we wonder whether it’s worthwhile to keep making the effort.

We need to remind ourselves that we never can predict all the results of our actions. A few years ago, I met a Wesleyan University student who, with a few friends, registered nearly three hundred fellow students concerned about environmental threats and cuts in government financial aid programs. The Congressman they supported won by twenty-one votes. Before they began, the student and her friends feared that their modest efforts would be irrelevant.