Reply #28: One must distinguish between

[The Traveler]

The electoral ambitions of the GOP apparatus and those of the Bush Administration. The focus of the dark inner core of the rightmost wing of the Republican Party has been expansion of power at any moral cost. Stealing an election by rigging voting machines would be consistent with other strategies like voter disenfranchisement. Funny. Only a couple of years ago, Republican strategists were boasting of an impending generational majority. Now, they are desperately struggling for political survival. That desperation will make vote manipulation more acceptable to more members of the GOP apparatus.

However, the objectives of the Bush/Cheney cabal may be quite different, and may well revolve around uprooting the process entirely. It seems to me that certain mechanisms have been put in place which could facilitate an eventual usurpation of the Constitution. Bush has moved enough in those directions that reasonable people are forced to speculate as to the nature of his motives and his long term plans. The unspoken question is now being asked openly around the water coolers of the nation ... will Bush really relinquish power in January 2009?

The interests of the GOP and President Bush have been divergent for a while now. We cannot assume that their objectives are same.