My house was one of the houses that this weasel had called on Election Day. Voter suppression efforts like this are key to EVERY Republican election strategy, so it is nice to see a scam exposed and punished from time to time (you can read the local coverage in the Sun Papers here and more here).
The evidence included a memo that described “The Schurick Doctrine” in unusually blunt terms:
The first and most desired outcome is voter suppression. The goal is to have as many African American voters stay home as a result of triangulation messaging based on the Schurick Doctrine.
The second most desired outcome is to get African American voters to skip voting in the bracket for Governor and only vote “down the ballot.” This outcome’s achievement is primarily rooted in confusion about which candidate is suitable to receive their vote.
Example: Neither Ehrlich or O’Malley are worth two cents. I don’t like either one!The third and less likely outcome is to get some, about thirty-five thousand, African American Democrats to switch over at the top of the ticket and vote for Bob Ehrlich statewide.
Somehow, the Jury didn’t buy the defense that these “don’t bother to vote” robocalls were really an effort to GOTV for Democrats.
I hope they throw the book at Schurick and sentence him to five* twelve years of hard time. Even if that happens, he can go to the big house knowing that thousands of Republican operatives will be following his doctrine to the letter as they feverishly work to Block the Vote in 2012. This is an ongoing Republican crime wave that cries out for more exposure and prosecutions.
Cheers
*fixed, as it turns out he could be sentence to 12 years.