George,

I'm sorry, I just had to write to rant a minute about the Republicans and their dirty, slimy tactics. I don't know why this isn't getting more press.

I got a phone call yesterday, purporting to be from Tim Kaine. He said he "wasn't afraid to say what he stands for" and proceeded to list that he was anti-gay marriage, pro-life, former Christian missionary who was deeply religious, etc., etc. I was fairly sickened by the phone call, and remember thinking it would have served the Republicans better than the Democrats to send a message like that to me. It even made me look briefly into Russ Potts' information to see if there were any alternatives to the "Republican-lite" candidate who left me a message. Turns out, I should have listened to my instincts. It WAS the Republicans who put together that phone call that clearly benefitted them more than the Democrats. They got someone to impersonate Tim Kaine's voice, and called all the independent voters, hoping to disgust them out of going to the polls tomorrow -- since polls show that the independents are leaning overwhelmingly towards Kaine, and it's going to be such a tight race.

They know they can't win if they fight fair-and-square, so they're cheating every which way they can. I heard they also distributed a phony Democratic sample ballot, to trick people into thinking they were voting for the Democrats when they weren't. How could ANYONE want to elect someone like that governor? It made me so mad that now I want to knock on every door I see and tell everyone about how slimy (as if we didn't already know it) the jerks are.

Ok, I guess I'm done ranting now. I just wanted to let you all know that if you got that awful phone message, it wasn't Tim Kaine. It was the Dark Side.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow, and make sure every decent person you know if Virginia votes too. A lot is at stake!

Eve Hesselroth (electronic mail, November 8, 2005)

Don't wait for 2008!