By Brad Friedman on 1/5/2005, 11:55pm PT  

Some good old fashioned rumormongering...We figure if folks are gonna accuse us of it, we may as well take part in some every now and again.

Clint Curtis, along with an activist, an FDA statistician and a former White House employee went from Senate office to Senate office today meeting with staffers in hopes of raising their awareness about all that has gone on and been learned since November 3rd about the disintigrating state of our democracy.

We are told that they were welcomed into every office, and Clint Curtis, in particular, caused a bit of a stir amongst the various staffers who were well-familiar with his story (several even mentioning that they had been following it on The BRAD BLOG we're happy to report!) A list of most of the visited offices can be seen in this post from earlier today.

Ted Kennedy's office, in particular, we are told, took an interest in speaking to Curtis. Arranging for Kennedy's legal team to speak with him when they heard he was there.

We received the same message from several different sources. Namely, that all day the phones never stopped ringing in every single office visited. All phone banks were overwhelmed, and the moment anyone would hang up the phone, it would ring immediately again.

The message is being sent loud and clear. Your voices are being heard! Though don't stop now! It ain't over till it's over.

The calls were overwhelmingly (one source even said 100%) in support of challenging the electors tomorrow. Senate staffers reported never having seen anything like it! Especially with so many calls being overwhelmingly in favor of only one side of an issue. "Thousands...thousands...non-stop!" said one Senate staffer.

On that point, the Internets are abuzz tonight with rumors that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will be indeed be standing up to challenge the Electors. See RAW STORY for more healthy, up-to-date, rumormongering links on that and the reports that she will be holding her cards close to her vest for as long as possible.

Earlier we reported that attempts for at least three hours today to reach her offices in both D.C. and Los Angeles were all met with busy signals until we were finally able to get through to her San Diego office which reported a tally of 250 calls FOR and only 10 AGAINST. (We didn't even know "Attny Jim" could do 10 different convincing voices! Inside joke for BRAD BLOG comment readers.)

And we've heard stories, from various sources, speculating that there will be anywhere from one Senator to eight who come forward tomorrow. Then again, there could be none, and since only one is necessary for a debate on the matter to take place in both Houses of Congress, we'll wait and see what happens tomorrow. But signs do look positive at this hour.

We have heard that there was a hard coalition of three Senators in support of challenging the Electors, while a larger number had hoped to simply publish a letter calling for Election Reform instead of taking the more impressive stand as recommended by the Constitution. There is a reason why in a body of hundreds, only two are required to immediately halt all proceedings in order to debate and investigate any Electoral chicanery.

While Election Reform is clearly necessary, that can be done next week, or next month. Tomorrow is the moment for Senators to stand up with the 24 House of Representative members to challenge Electors for being illegally seated.

We're happy to report we've heard that the three Senators in favor of challenge held strong, at least for the day, and did not fold in favor of the "Letter" option.

There has also been discussion today of challenging the Electors of at least three different states! (Ohio, Florida and New Mexico being the front-runners in the rumormill department)

A challenge to the Electors of three different states would force three different debates on the matter, and likely bump the whole thing into a second news cycle (at least) as one source mentioned to us...Which, we believe, would also be a very good thing.

But do we ask too much? :-)

Perhaps...But asking too much has gotten us this far, so why stop now?

Keep up the good work, Freedom Fighters. We'll see you (and C-SPAN) in the morning...The festivities, rumor has it, begin at 1pm ET (10am PT for you Liberal Hollywood Elitists).

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