The only way to counter their strategy is for Obama to win the election by a landslide.
Pennsylvania is tweaking the system to change how the electoral college cast their votes and other states may follow suit. Redisdricting, curtailing early voting and requiring photo IDs also play a part in disinfranchising a great number of voters. Then there are those Diebold machines...
According to a Q&A item on the Washington Post, there's very little individuals can do about it.
So landslide it is, and by a very large margin, which doesn't seem to be on the cards if the polls are in any way reliable.
I think that requiring photo IDs, which involve obtaining a birth certificate (at a cost), plus the state photo ID, again at a cost, would prevent the poor and the unemployed from voting, when voting should be free. One way to get around this would require some creative community organizing in the states in question. It would involve serious fundraising and publicizing that funds would be available for all those people without a photo ID to obtain one.
It's very important that a maximum number of people are elligible to vote and that they actually go out on election day to cast their ballots. That's the only way to ensure a landslide for Obama and counter all the GOP dirty tricks.
As for Sarah Palin jumping in at the last moment, that could be a strategy on the part of the people behind her. They'll wait until the other candidates have put both feet in their mouths during the debates, then she'll come in as the saviour, having spent all these weeks leaking poison from the sidelines. She hasn't been attacking only Obama lately and that's worrying. Her new talking points (crony capitalism, for example) are designed to make everybody look bad.
They might find a way to rig the primaries as well... or she may run on a third party ticket.
When it comes to polling day, faced with the choice between an attractive white woman with instant name recognition, a discredited GOP candidate and the black guy who has been demonized for four years, enough voters may be tempted to go for Sarah Palin. Add the media love affair with her plus some rigging to the mix and... voilà!
She hasn't been talking about an unconventional election for nothing...
George W Bush managed to "win" two conventional elections, so nothing surprises me in American politics.
