Posted 2:23 AM by Paul
Ohio

It has just been announced that the Federal courts have allowed a Republican appeal to allow their scrutinisers inside polling stations to "check voters' eligibility" In the UK this is called voter harassment and carries a prison sentence. The job of scrutiny is for officials not for party workers. Try and do it in Spain and you would be beaten senseless.

My fear (and my predictions have been lousy over the last few weeks - no decisive invasion of Falluja and Rove did not use the Black Watch deployment to demonstrate the strength of the coalition) is that the polls in parts of Ohio will descend into violence. But it shows that Bush's people are scared that they will lose the state. If they lose Ohio they will almost certainly be out of office. Kerry can lose it and still win. In fact he can lose Ohio and Florida and still win if he takes West Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire.

Both candidates are still on the stump, in stark contrast to 2000 when Bush went home to Texas on the Sunday before polling day. His people had told him he was 4-6% ahead, when in fact he was 0.5% behind. At least the US electorate are making him work for a living.

And, if as I suspect, Bush just wins? Move to a South Sea island but not Pitcairn.

One thing is certain. If he wins with a minority vote he will still act as if he carried the election on a landslide