Dirty Deeds, Done at the Cost of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars (and one or two elections)

God knows I need something to rant about, and what's better to rant about than douchebag Republicans…especially when it's presented in handy Top 10 format? That is, unless you want more mediocre baseball analysis.

Anyway, just so we get our talking points straight for the 2008 election, here are the Top 10 2006 mid-term election shady tactics:

1. In Maryland, Republicans turn Democrat – being a Republican had such negative connotations this year that three Maryland candidates lied about who endorsed them, handed out "Democratic sample ballots" that listed their names, and hired homeless men to distribute their materials. What, no "I heart abortions" bumper stickers?

2. In Virginia, voter intimidation – some folks were apparently left messages saying that they would be charged criminally if they tried to vote in Virginia. Let's see what the FBI says about this one.

3. The Social Security Administration gets into the act – some Illinois voters received mail from the Social Security Administration that detailed Democrat candidate (and close race loser) Tammy Duckworth's "dangerous" plan to extend benefits to illegal immigrants. There's just one problem: the mailer wasn't from the SSA, it was from the Republican National Committee. Did somebody sail mail fraud?

4. "Not like in Mexico, here there is no benefit to voting." – nearly 14,000 Californians received a letter stating (in grammatically incorrect Spanish) that if they attempted to vote on Nov. 7, they could face jail time or deportation. Every single one of the recipients was a registered Democrat and had a Latino last name. In a shocking development, it was "discovered that campaign officials working for Republican congressional candidate (and staunch supporter of anti-immigration legislation) Tan Nguyen were responsible for composing the letter and compiling names for the mailing list".

5. Blood runs thicker than party affiliation – not exactly GOP dirt here, but it seems that Harold Ford's little brother attempted to pull a Lieberman; that is, if Joe let his daddy distribute fake ballots that misstated his party affiliation.

6. The robot that called. And called. And called – boy I sure did enjoy those auto-dialed election calls (or didn't Bill Clinton leave a personal message on your answering machine? That one's going in my audio scrapbook). Yet it seems I got off easy; voters in some of the most hotly contested House districts received robo-calls " about the local Democrat. But if you hung up, the robot would call back. Hang up again and, like some character out of a Stephen King novel, the robot would call again. And again. And again, sometimes as many as seven times before it gave up. So the voters who had the temerity to want to enjoy their dinner unmolested were left with the impression of a Democratic candidate who simply would not leave them alone; those who stayed on the line were instead treated to a string of disinformation about the Democrat." Thanks, NRCC!

7. Push polls – remember the Michael J. Fox/Rush Limbaugh controversy that erupted over stem cell research as a wedge issue in Missouri? Well, one ostensibly impartial pollster group called Show Me Staters and asked if they supported " medical experiments on babies still in the womb -- and were then told that Democrat Claire McCaskill did". Stay classy, St. Louis.

8. The progressive group that wasn't – Pennsylvania Senator-elect Bob Casey may be a Democrat in name only, but voters were apparently satisfied that he was, at least, not Rick Santorum. No liberal heartthrob, Casey was challenged by outspoken progressives. One catch: the "progressives" lose a lot of clout when they're run by one of the Interloper's cronies. Boy, who would have thought something like this could happen in Pennsylvania?

9. Case of the vanished polling place – voters in at least three states were called with erroneous information that their polling places had been changed and were given directions to new locations that didn't exist. In New Mexico, such a call was traced back to the local Republican Party HQ.

10. And last, but not least -- vigilantes – three Arizona activists waved a gun around as they promoted their anti-immigration agenda outside polling stations. No, I don't feel intimidated. Fuck them wet backs. Can you stop pointing the gun at me now?