The Real Agenda

Since I posted on RFK's tin foil hat theory of the vote in Ohio last election season, I've been trying to understand what the purpose of raising such baseless charges could be.

Today, I've got the answer. Mystery Pollster (a/k/a Mark Blumenthal, a Democratic pollster and consultant in Ohio), gives the game away. He debunks RFK's claims, but in doing so, he's careful to argue that:

And then there is partisanship of Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, now his party's nominee for governor. Blackwell will need to answer to Ohio voters for, as Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo writes, having "used his powers for partisan gain," issuing "a series of arbitrary and capricious voting and registration rules that could well have disenfranchised many people in the state."

Get it? The big problem is the secretary of state, who happens to be Ken Blackwell, an accomplished African-American Republican, who is now running for governor.

So although Blumenthal and Kennedy may disagree on the specifics, they agree on the real agenda: Create a controversy that will prevent Blackwell from winning.