I am so tired of seeing pundit after pundit and reporter after reporter use the same canned analysis during the primary season. It feels more like they are covering each other’s coverage than covering the campaigns themselves. I think there should be a one-month moratorium on the following words and phrases.

• Candidate of change
• Inevitability
• Phenomenon
• Movement
• Reinvent himself / herself
• Tapped into
• Momentum
• Rock star
• Strong organization
• Appeals to the base
• Values voters (thanks for this suggestion, Lori)

It would be interesting to see if the talking heads could come up with anything original to say.

Here’s how I would have done it.

1. Find a precinct where the poll workers don’t check IDs before handing out ballots. (This probably applies to the vast majority of precincts in the country.)
2. Obtain a list of all registered voters in that precinct. (This is freely available to all candidates.)
3. Station a volunteer at the voter check-in desk to mark down who has come in to vote. (This is perfectly legal.)
4. An hour or so before the polls close, send the list of who has voted and, by extension, who hasn’t, back to campaign headquarters. (Again, perfectly legal.)
5. Send out a group of new volunteers to the precinct to impersonate the voters who hadn’t shown up yet and vote on their behalf. (Not so legal.)

This scheme can only fail if (a) the poll workers happen to know the no-show voters and recognize my volunteers as imposters, (b) my volunteers have incredibly bad timing and show up at the same time as the people whose identities they are stealing, or (c) the poll workers suddenly decide to check IDs. I imagine the consequences of getting caught could be severe, but based on my experiences watching the polls the risk seems slight.

Given our country’s recent troubles with elections, it is astonishing to me that people anywhere are still allowed to vote without positive identification.

Disclaimer: this blog entry was written while I was volunteering as a poll observer for a political campaign, but the campaign is in no way associated with this post and I have absolutely no reason to suspect that any of the campaigns participating in this election have engaged in any form of vote fraud.

As I was gleefully reading the story of Larry Craig’s adventures in the Minneapolis airport, I came across the following paragraphs:

The scandal had already taken a political toll. On Monday, Craig resigned from a prominent role with Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He had been one of Romney’s top Senate supporters, serving as a liaison for the campaign since February.

Asked about Craig, Romney said, “He’s disappointed the American people.”

“Yeah, I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton. I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we’ll just forgive and forget,” Romney said on CNBC’s “Kudlow & Company.”

Foley is a former Republican lawmaker who resigned nearly a year ago after being confronted with the computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill. Clinton is the former president accused in congressional impeachment proceedings of lying about an affair with a White House intern.

“Accused?!?!” Excuse me, but it’s a FACT that Clinton lied about his affair with Lewinsky. Stuff like this, unfortunately, gives credibility to those on the right who rant and rave about the media’s love affair with the Clintons and other Democratic leaders. Do you think reporters and editors really don’t notice that they’re doing this?

WASHINGTON, July 3 - In a surprise move, the United States of America has commuted the remainder of President George W. Bush’s term in office. “We respect the 2004 voters’ decision,” said the nation, “but we have concluded that the punishment resulting from this decision is excessive. Therefore, we are shortening the president’s second term to time served.” The nation simultaneously commuted the term of Vice President Dick Cheney.

At a press conference in the White House, former President Bush expressed relief. “This was hard work,” he said. “But I think what you see today is [that] there is something uniquely American about America, and I am proud to be — to have been – there is a part of me that will always be American.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will succeed Mr. Bush as President, according to the terms of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. “First the baseball All-Star Game comes to my home town, and now this,” she said. “Get ready for some big-time San Francisco values.”