They're already trying to steal the White House

If you can't win, cheat.

Apparently that's the Republicans' answer to our work in California. If they have their way, this reliably "blue" state won't be so blue in 2008.

Faced with a strong Democratic presence, Republicans are campaigning for a new election system instead of their own candidates.

If they get what they're after, it could cost us the White House.

In California, Republican operatives -- including some of the 2004 Swift Boaters -- are working on a proposition for the June ballot that would essentially hand over 20 of the state's electoral votes before the elections even begin next November.

Electoral reform is a good thing -- but this proposition doesn't even come close to an honest effort. It's designed for just one thing: to make California the only big state in the country to break up its electoral votes, handing the White House back over to the Republicans. We need election reform, but let's do it for real -- and let's not pick and choose which states we do it in.

We can't let this proposition get on the ballot. Reject the Republican power grab in California:

http://www.democrats.org/DirtyTricks

California, like 47 other states, awards all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes. In the last four elections, all of California's electoral votes have gone to the Democratic nominee.

Republicans want to change the rules to award one electoral vote for each Congressional district a presidential candidate wins. In 2004, that would have given George Bush 19 of John Kerry's 55 votes.

These so-called "reformers" aren't proposing to do this in Texas, or Florida, or Ohio, or any other large state that the Republicans won in 2004.

Only California.

This isn't electoral reform -- it's a blatant power grab. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger is against the proposal, saying:

"I feel like, if you're all of a sudden in the middle of the game start changing the rules, it's kind of odd... It almost feels like a loser's mentality, saying, 'I cannot win with those rules. So let me change the rules.'"

Don't let the Republicans cheat to win the election. Make your voice heard now:

http://www.democrats.org/DirtyTricks

For Republicans, it's not Iowa or New Hampshire that matters most in 2008 -- it's California.

Tell them to play by the rules.

Sincerely,

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.