I just got word that John Kerry has announced a last minute stop in Detroit this Monday afternoon. This is, of course, a mixed blessing. It’s great that he’s coming here, but it means that things are tight. As much as we might like to think otherwise, he wouldn’t be coming here if he didn’t have to… So, with that in mind, I’m asking all of my readers in Michigan to please get out and do something this weekend, even if it’s just for an hour or two. Every little bit does matter… And, if you can, take off Election Day to help take people to the polls. I’m always looking for people in Ypsi, but I’m sure you can find opportunities elsewhere. The important thing is that you contribute something. Losing Michigan isn’t an option.

Do you really want to know?

Are you sure?

Well, first of all, things are really fucked up in Ohio:

Republicans have already filed 35,000 challenges to voters’ eligibility and are preparing to send recruits into 8,000 polling places next Tuesday to challenge other voters they suspect are not eligible, particularly hundreds of thousands of the newly registered. Democrats are alarmed at the effort, saying it could tie up voting and keep many away from the polls.

On the positive side, however, The New Yorker has endorsed a presidential candidate, something it has not felt obliged to do before in its 80-year history:

While Bush has pandered relentlessly to the narrowest urges of his base, Kerry has sought to appeal broadly to the American center. In a time of primitive partisanship, he has exhibited a fundamentally undogmatic temperament. In campaigning for America’s mainstream restoration, Kerry has insisted that this election ought to be decided on the urgent issues of our moment, the issues that will define American life for the coming half century. That insistence is a measure of his character. He is plainly the better choice. As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold him to the highest standards of honesty and performance. For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory.

Then there’s the fact that the CIA is holding out on us until after the election:

The Central Intelligence Agency has blocked, at least temporarily, the distribution of a draft internal report that identifies individual officers by name in discussing whether anyone should be held accountable for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of Congress from both parties said.

And Democratic voter registrations are being shredded:

Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats.

And Florida is being stolen right under our noses:

Lines have moved so slowly at new touch-screen voting machines that only six votes per hour are being cast in parts of South Florida, a troubling ratio for next week’s expected crush of voters. Gov. Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors to “preserve order at the polls” after episodes of voter harassment arose and some workers threatened to abandon their posts when an aide was nearly choked by an angry partisan who grabbed the identification badge around her neck. And as many as 60,000 absentee ballots here in Broward County have gone unaccounted for.