A Despite Kerry's lagging polls, the Democrats still plan to win this November.
How?
Perhaps by the old fashioned way: stealing the election.
That's the word from a top Republican strategist in Washington who tells NewsMax the Democrats have put an unusual amount of resources into "voter turnout" efforts.
NewsMax's Insider Report reported weeks ago that the 527 groups supporting Kerry, and backed by the likes of billionaire George Soros, were earmarking most of the $160 million they have raised toward voter registration and "get out the vote" efforts.
Approximately two-thirds of the 527 money - or a $100 million - will go toward these efforts.
Republicans believe many of these voter registration efforts open up the door for qualified and multiple voting schemes on Election Day.
Worse, the 527's are now claiming they will spend three times what has been previously reported to "get out the vote."
One pro-Kerry group, America Votes, told the New York Times that its backers - "labor unions, trial lawyers, environmental groups, community organizations - will spend $300 million on registration and turnout in swing states, a sum that dwarfs the $150 million in public financing the two candidates together will receive for the entire fall campaign."
NewsMax has also reported that only a handful of states were being targeted for this avalanche of cash, notably Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
However, Republicans believe this will lay the groundwork not for a Democratic electoral victory on November 2nd, but for election theft on November 2nd.
NewsMax reports were confirmed this Sunday in the New York Times, which headlined its story "A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States."
The paper said, " A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows."
As it turned out in 2000, Bush won Florida by less than a 1000 votes, and Ohio by about 30,000 votes.
Republicans have been shy about raising the voter registration and fraud issue because of the race issue; Democrats have been quick to say the Republicans are "racist" for challenging voter registration efforts in minority and inner city areas.
But the Times notes that's exactly where the Democrats have been focusing their resources.
The paper reported: "The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas.
"A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas."
Of course, the Kerry campaign says it has nothing to do with the 527 efforts, but they appear to be happy with the results.
"We know it's going on, and it's a very encouraging sign," Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Senator John Kerry, told the Times. He added that these efforts "could very much be the difference" for Kerry.
Steve Rosenthal, the head of another 527 group - Americans Coming Together, or ACT - told the Times, "I think what's happening on the streets, below the radar, is what's going to make the big difference on Election Day." Rosenthal claimed that by Election Day the 527 groups will have registered two and a half million new voters.
A chart in the Times showed that the Democrat registrations are outpacing Republicans in Ohio and Florida by five times or more.
