As my grandfather used to say, as the crow flies, we've got just one month to go - the 7th to the 7th - before election day. I don't have to guess that many of us are on pins and needles. I read about it all around the 'net and I hear it from my off-line friends every day. The chief worry: all this optimistic talk about a Democratic victory in the House and/or the Senate is going to turn to ashes just as did our hopes in '04. Karl Rove has another surprise prepared to spring on us before October is over. The polls are wrong. Democrats aren't working hard enough. They're focusing on the wrong issues. We're deluded if we think '06 will be anything like '94, or '80 or '74. On and on and on.

Along with this worry-wartism is the perspective of some that even if Democratic challengers get more votes, they won't take office because Diebold will intervene. And then there's the ultimate reason offered for not getting excited: even if the intervention fails, and Democrats manage to squeeze out a majority, this won't matter because too many Democrats aren't "really" Democrats and will vote with the Republicans anyway. Which translates into: There isn't a nickel's worth of difference between the Dems and the GOP.

Thus does despair seek to create its own empire of apathy.

I'm a Popular Front Democrat, so I'm full of criticism for the party. But, unless one's goal aligns with Rove's and Denny Hastert's, now isn't the time to complain that Democrats have no ideas, or principles, or spine. Later for that. Now is the time to kick Republican butt. Having succeeded, in January we can kick Democratic butt.

Now is also not the time to become paralyzed over what the Republicans may be cooking up in the next four weeks. Instead, however many hours you can spare, now is the time to be walking precincts, chatting up family and friends and neighbors and colleagues, working the phones or doing whatever other volunteer work a candidate near you needs you to do. Now is the time, if you can afford it, to put some money (or some more money) into a favorite campaign or two. Now is the time, if you haven't already, to get serious.

In particular, I think that the voter fraud bugaboo has been seriously over-rated. It's clear that there's been a concerted vote-suppression effort by the Republicans as part and parcel of their GOTV effort, but it's far less clear that there has been a lot of systematic voter fraud going on (although the potential for it with no-paper-trail machines is high enough for us to be very concerned). Still even if all the suspicions turn out to be true, these efforts depend on the actual votes being relatively evenly split between the parties. When that happens, when things are balanced on a fulcrum, a small number of votes suppressed or switched can throw the results one way or the other.

The problem for the Republicans is that signs are pointing rather strongly to this election not being that kind of evenly balanced affair. It seems rather than this is going to be much closer to a Democratic rout, and if that's the case (and I think it may be) then it's not going to be possible to change the results by moving a small number of votes. Instead, huge blocks of votes will have to change or be suppressed, and such activities are much, much harder to cover-up. That's why I don't think the voter fraud concern is one we need to be too concerned about, as long as the tea leaves still point in the right direction.

Now, what Rove & Company will do to counter Foley & Iraq & etc. is another concern altogether, and one we need to be prepared for.