Serious question:

[Must_B_Free]

Given the emergence of rampant propaganda on major media outlets, is there any chance that the corporate conservative right may try to steer in a friendly opposing candidate as a backup plan?

This is a recurring pattern on thier side, have an interest in both sides of a contest so you can never really "lose".

If any new candidates come in the race at this point, I am going to be very skeptical of their background. I am going to be looking for conservative friendships, relationships, business dealings, policy workings, etc.

Given the way the wool has been pull over our every the last three years, all I can say is I am highly skeptical.

[Jim Sagle]

1. You're just about a week behind.

But somehow I suspect you knew that. :-)

[Must_B_Free]

2. I am not sure on that

on one hand it seems obvious, but other posters do a convincing job of defending these things and he doies, after all, have some convincing endorsements; Michael Moore, for example.

[PATRICK]

3. No, all or nothing

Either you have the whole Bushco gang or the best you can get is someone who is too weak and indifferent to doo anything about the mess left behind. The tangle of special interests is deliberate. In no way do they(Bushco) want an alternative in the wings. That is why Powell, a corporate media darling who could Eisenhower them out of the military fiasco has been figuratively castrated.

He defeats a big part of the agenda. The BEST they could hope for might as well be a Democrat they can push around, compromise and entangle temporarily in the schemes until next time.

The real protection is the lock on Congress through electronic voting machines and DLC misjudgment.

You don't need all that many people locked in Byzantine conspiracies and hundreds of criminal plots. Just a lot of fools, cowards and crooks. The organized manipulators are the interlocked gang and their corporate protection racket. Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Rove gone would be a serious blow.

The larger problems of ideology and corporate attacks on democracy and government are a more broad based organic corruption of the world economy that have to be dealt with in major world and national policy change. Not easy to do with a Radical Relpublican Congress.

You have a lot more to worry about than focussing on a Messiah vs. Manchurian Candidate cabal.