Moore or less

Michael Moore, sounding a bit desperate, shouts in his newsletter:

Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies.

I agree. Not that Bush is a goner, but that the race is wide open. Bush has a lead, sure, but with six weeks to go this is anybody's game.

Moore goes on to state "The polls are wrong." Funny, a year ago he was glad to quote polls when they went his way.

[Wesley Clark] announced on Wednesday and by Sunday he was #1 in the Newsweek poll on the 10 Democratic candidates. By yesterday, according to the CNN/Time poll, he was nine points ahead of his nearest rival -- and three percentage points ahead of Bush if the election were held today.

(Ah, Wesley Clark. Whatever happend to him?)

But is Moore a seer, or just a wishful thinker? I make no claims, but let's see what he had to say about two years ago.

Sunday, November 3rd, 2002

Years from Now, They'll Call It "Payback Tuesday"

Dear Friends,

Well, folks, Tuesday is the day! The day that George W. gets taught a long overdue lesson. The day that we, the MAJORITY -- the 52% who never elected him -- get our chance to reclaim a bit of our former democracy (back when ALL the votes used to be counted).

What if, on Tuesday, all of us, regardless of our political stripe, and just for the fun of it, decided to serve one big-ass eviction notice that said, you have two years to remove yourself from the premises-and you had better not damage anything on your way out?

I think we can give Bush the Mother of all Shellackings on Tuesday.

In the 2002 elections, the Republicans expanded their majority in the House and retook the Senate, almost unheard for the White House party in an off-year election. Oddly, I couldn't locate the above message in Moore's archives. Lucky someone sent it to me.