Following are news items by Knight Ridder’s political bloggers.

GOP IN PHILLY:… Following are news items by Knight Ridder’s political bloggers.

GOP IN PHILLY: BLOCK THE VOTE

“It’s predominantly, 100 percent black. I’m just not going in there to get a knife in my back.”

– Matt Robb, Republican ward leader in South Philadelphia, on his last-minute request to move five Philly polling places in African-American neighborhoods.

Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes are the second-biggest “battleground” prize after Florida. John Kerry can’t win here without a huge turnout in Philadelphia, especially in black neighborhoods that vote 90 percent Democratic. As a result, it’s the first place you’d expect a GOP voter suppression effort.

And now it’s here.

Chris Brennan (with a big assist from Dave Davies) has the scoop in today’s Philadelphia Daily News. They learned that high-ranking state GOP and Bush operatives asked local Republicans to try to move 63 polling places at the last minute. Some 53 of the 63 polling places are in districts less than 10 percent white.

The complaints against the polling places vary – the bulk are for alleged handicapped accessibility problems, but 17 charge that the polling places are in homes or businesses where voters might feel intimidated.

Deborah Williams, a Republican candidate for Congress, who is black, said the Republican state committee asked to use her name on 28 of the complaints. Nevertheless, she defended the move, saying that “this is not about creating some stir in the election or denying anyone the right to vote.”

Democrats feel otherwise. If the polling places were moved at the last minute, it could lead to massive confusion on Election Day – and thwart some people in mostly black, heavily Democratic neighborhoods from voting.

Bob Lee, Philadelphia’s voter registration administrator who’s normally not given to partisan statements, said flatly: “They’re trying to suppress the vote.”

The move is almost certain to fail – especially now that it’s been exposed. Lee said it appears that the applications came into his office too late to allow for a hearing before Election Day.

In addition to Robb, the GOP ward leader who acknowledged that race played a role in the request, another Republican ward leader behind the effort was North Philadelphia’s Listervelt Ritter, who is black. He said the move isn’t aimed at suppression, but he adds:

“The black neighborhoods are the ones that do the funny stuff. What are you supposed to do?”

Stay tuned. There’s still 15 days between now and the election.

-By William Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News

MOVEON LAUNCHES BLITZ OF DRAFT SPECULATION

Emboldened by a letter from Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, the folks over at MoveOn.org’s Student Action unit are storming campus newspapers.

Their message: President Bush’s policies are leading toward a military draft.

It appears Monday in an ad in the A section of The New York Times, and MoveOn.org has vowed that ads will also appear next week in 155 college newspapers that together reach 1.2 million college students. (An estimated 28 million 18- to 24-year-olds live in the United States.)

The announcement of the advertising blitz came earlier Monday in a press release.

The release also claims that the “outrageous” letter from Gillespie, received Thursday, demands that the MoveOn group stop talking about draft speculation.

Right. Like that’ll happen.

-By Adam Smeltz, Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

FORMER RUNNING MATE CHANGES SIDES

She was twice Ralph Nader’s running mate – in 1996 and 2000 – but this time Winona LaDuke says she’s voting for John Kerry.

“I’m voting my conscience,” said LaDuke, 44, who lives on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northwestern Minnesota.

The longtime American Indian activist applauded Kerry’s efforts in solving Indian Trust cases.

-By Ellen Dunkel, Knight Ridder Digital

(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.