Down to the wire

I'm just back from the big CAJA Institute Election Night Party, and as of now, there are four Senate seats still open: Montana, Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri.

Regardless of whether the Democrats take the Senate, I want that Virginia seat, and I want it BADLY. I want to see Felix Macacawitz concede. I want him out of politics, so that we don't see yet another affable numbskull facade that conceals a gargoyle running for president.

Virginia has been fraught with problems all day, and it's been KILLING me that I couldn't liveblog during the day. But it's still too close to call, and now it looks like evidence from the phony calls to Virginia voters telling them they will be arrested if they try to vote points to the Allen campaign.

E Pluribus Media reports:

As widely reported, the FBI is investigating complaints that "phony callers tried to intimidate Virginia voters" as well as misdirect them to incorrect polling places. According to MSNBC, Sen. George Allen's campaign manager Chris LaCivita stated the calls "sure as heck [are] not coming from the Allen campaign."
However, LaCivita is a former lobbyist and associate with the DCI Group, a public affairs company with a history of vote tampering via the telephone, with techniques like push-polling and phone jamming.

In addition, Friends of George Allen, the Senator's principal campaign committee, has made numerous payments to emotive, LLC, a VA firm with connections to the DCI Group, and that offers their clients "direct response fundraising and voter persuasion."

[snip]

Although a full accounting has not been completed, Allen's campaign paid emotive, LLC $6000 on 6/26/06 according to their expenditure filings with the FEC.

Between the harassing robocalls and the threatening ones, Webb certainly has a case for vote suppression. Right now he's 2376 votes ahead. I suspect that margin would be larger without George Allen's people threatening to put deers' heads in the mailboxes of black voters.

We shall see. This may go on for days.