Trouble on election front

While the presidential election remains incredibly tight, there are some good and bad trends for President Obama.

The Intrade numbers are moving in his direction again, roughly 62 percent to 38 percent as of Thursday night.

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight still gives Obama a 73 percent chance of winning even as the national polls show a dead-even race.

Obama is fading a tad, though, in Florida and Virginia, but retains a slight lead in the polls in Ohio.

However, the voting machines used in certain key counties in Ohio are owned by a company with ties to Mitt Romney.

It worked in 2004 when a Bush buddy at Diebold skewed results in Ohio in favor of Bush over Kerry.

Also, states with Republican governors or legislatures, from Pennsylvania to Florida to Virginia to Colorado to Ohio have worked hard to slant the election toward Republicans by repeatedly purging voter rolls, even of citizens who are entitled to vote. They also tried to suppress the vote by passing voter I.D. laws that most courts said were discriminatory.

Republicans are the first to cry "voter fraud" because they are the ones who are practicing it. Almost no one else is committing voter fraud.

The company that the GOP hired to register voters was fired because it committed actual voter fraud in Florida. 

It's gotten so bad that an affiliate of the United Nations is sending people, from countries with their own problems with democracy, over here to monitor our election.

And, if this isn't enough to hand the election to the Mitt-wit, he's got his buddies in the corporate world to threaten their workers if they vote for Obama.

Judging from these episodes, it doesn't appear America is that exceptional after all.