Is the fix already in for 2008?

"Two weeks ago, an obscure, unelected, Republican-appointed official in California decided the future of the world. That future – at least for the next several years – will be an accelerating nightmare of war, corruption, repression, breakdown, atrocity and terror. That's because the loyal apparatchik has, with the stroke of a pen, guaranteed the perpetuation of the militarist Bush Faction in power in 2008 and beyond.

"One of the few certainties in modern American politics is that no Democrat can hope to win the presidency without carrying California. Thanks to the infantilizing Electoral College system set up by the Founding Oligarchs to keep the low-born rabble from voting directly for president, the big haul of California's electoral votes is crucial for Democrats to offset the multitude of small, sparsely-populated states that reliably vote Republican. Bagging California doesn't guarantee Democratic victory, obviously; but without it, the cliff-hanger electoral counts in the goosed elections of 2000 and 2004 wouldn't even have been close.

"Thus the sudden, hugger-mugger decision by California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson to override the objections of his own experts and certify the eminently hackable voting machines of the politically partisan private firm, Diebold, for use throughout the state means, quite simply, that the fix is in for the 2008 race. It doesn't matter who the Democrats run – Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, George Clooney, or Jesus H. Christ in an Uncle Sam suit – it won't make a bit of difference. California is lost, the presidency is lost, the Bushists are in – already. It's over."
-- Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque and The Moscow Times. Full article here.