Iraqi elections: Elites to fight for power and oil.
(RealNews.Net talks to Leila Fadel, McClatchy's Baghdad Bureau Chief. Dec 15)

I really hope the Iraqi provincial elections today NEXT WEEK (I misread the link) go well - free, fair and non-violent. Both the vote itself and the way it is conducted will be important indicators of the way that nation is going, whether towards reconcilliation or towards entrenched factional splits and thus eventual outbreaks of violence again. There's already a huge fly in the ointment - elections in Kurdish Iraq won't happen today because of power-sharing turf fights. That such massive security measures are required just so that "the people" can exercise their democratic voice isn't a great sign either.

A credible election without significant violence would show that the security improvements of the past 18 months are taking hold. The outcome will also show which parties stand the best chance of success in parliamentary elections expected by the end of the year.

However, a deeply flawed election, marred by violence and allegations of widespread fraud, would cast doubt over Iraq's future and could influence President Barack Obama's decision on how fast to remove the 142,000 American troops.

Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to end America's role in the unpopular war and has ordered his national security team to prepare plans for a responsible withdrawal. U.S. officials warn that a hasty pullout could threaten Iraq's fragile security.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Pentagon is closely watching the elections because their outcome "will, I think, be a big indicator for 2009, which is a big year."

U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned extremists may try to disrupt Saturday's vote and are planning heightened security, including banning vehicles on election day and closing airports and land borders. But officials expect a strong turnout — possibly more than 70 percent of the 15 million eligible voters.

We're not going to know who the "winners" are for months, as deals and coalitions come and go. A lot of those fractures in Iraqi society are going to be stressed. By the end of it all, we'll know far more about how well "we broke it, we should fix it" is going.

Keith Olbermann comments on GOP attempts to suppress votes by attacking ACORN

In 2008, faced with a groundswell of public opinion that should deliver a landslide of disapproval for the Republican party and send it into the political wilderness for years, the poor losers of the GOP are more than ready to prevent that end by any means. Few, if any, of the tactics it is using are illegal - often the result of careful legislation designed to preserve the Republican majority forever - but added together they comprise an assault on democracy which would stun even the cynical and sly politicians of Old Europe.

In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."

The GOP and the McCain campaign have been trying to drum up a Bradley Effect, with campaign and party apparatchiks trotting out racist whistles against Obama (and by extension against the party he now leads) at every opportunity while party leaders pretend to be oblivious and unknowing. McCain, Palin and the GOP's Congressional leaders would condemn any overt racism, of course, and attribute it to some bad apples - but they seem remarkably dense in not spotting anything other than utter hate speech racism from their followers (or the candidate himself) when it occurs. The merest veil of deniability conceals their deliberately looking the other way while their supporters run riot.

Nor have their smears stopped at racism. Calling Obama and Dems in general traitors, terrorist abettors, "feminazis" and (oh, horrors) socialists has become a substitute for debating issues. (Actually, Obama's just echoing Lincoln.) From an early stage, the GOP knew it was going to run on personality smears as a substitute for facts. Again, much of the groundswell of hate on the Right is implausibly deniable by the leadership, but since any media attention only fuels their base's paranoia and engenders new smear attacks, "implausible" is all they need to keep the ball rolling independently.

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Pundits with conservative sympathies are starting to talk about the "L" word as they contemplate the utter collapse of Republican credibility and a probable scenario where Obama as President is backed by democratic majorities - even fillibuster-proof ones - in both Senate and House.

John McCain's campaign has already tacitly accepted the "landslide" scenario. It's latest tactic is to try to offer a McCain presidency to independents as a balance to Pelosi, something they wouldn't even contemplate if they thought that Republicans weren't going to take a major beating or if McCain had a chance of taking the White House under their own power.

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