But to tell the truth, there wasn't much talk about of robocalls on the ground in the Sixth. I was offline most of the day and I hadn't read too much about it until tonight. There's no story on the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer right now. Maybe they're hard at work on a story for the morning's print edition, but maybe not. In the long term, we need to get to a point where these sort of crude and abusive tactics just can't shake our voters. We'll need to increase the pool of resilient voters who won't let anything get in between them and their vote.

If you happen to be in the Philly area, you can hear just those sort of voters for yourself on WHAT 1340 AM, the self-billed "voice of the African-American community." I've been listing to WHAT all day today as I drove through the Sixth District. Hour after hour, hosts and callers hashed over Election Day 2006 from the most interesting of angles, like:

• how the duality model of good and evil leads to war
• the need to move from literal to logos (or logic) in the understanding of religion
• media literacy
• the "schizophrenia" of modern Christianity where even pastors don't believe the words that come out of their mouth
• spiritual illiteracy
• Wilsonianism
• how to scrutinize a politician's record.

But all day long the message was that (1) your vote matters, (2) it is a duty and honor to vote, and (3) nothing and no one should get between you and your vote. Talk radio is powerful stuff (and WHAT is a reminder of why what happened to Air America is such a shame), but that power comes from strength of message.

I sat down today for a long talk with Lois Murphy's campaign manager Jill Harris. At the heart of this campaign, according to Jill, was something that happened a long while ago. In actual fact, Murphy is a strong candidate and a great Democrat for PA-06. But many months ago Gerlach did some polling, found out that Murphy's name recognition was fairly low in the district, and set out to brand her as "Liberal Lois" running a campaign based on hate:

Not one to give in to the weakness of subtlety, Gerlach also put up a website at LiberalLoisMurphy.com. For some voters in the sixth, it was effectively Gerlach who introduced Murphy to them for first time.

I think there's a fair concern in the Sixth that a Democratic message limited to "we're not those awful Republicans" might have the cut the legs out from under it by a Republican response of "me neither." Someone like Don Sherwood can't pull off that counter-message. But tomorrow we might find out if a moderate rank-and-file member like Jim Gerlach can. Here in the district, he seems to be best known for his efforts to protect open spaces in the rapidly growing exurbs. Then there are the facts that he voted against the ban on funding for embryonic stem-cell research and the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Jill walked me through their campaign strategy (though she asked that I not write about some of the specifics until after the election) and what she's seen of Gerlach's. She said that unlike the 2004 race where Lois was under funded but still just barely lost to Gerlach 49% - 51%, the resources are in place this cycle to allow her to fully compete. Harris remarked on Gerlach's ability to accentuate different parts of his record in the different parts of the district -- running tough-on-immigration in the more insular "left claw" of the pterodactyl and protector-of-the-environment in the more progressive "right claw," and so on.

On GOTV, Jill is a veteran of ACT's 2004 efforts in Ohio and another Murphy staffer who worked with her there remarked that while Democrats were focused on eight Ohio counties in that cycle, Republicans were working in eighty. Murphy's team seems to have a lesson from that in 2006, and without giving up too much, I will say that they have a plan to find every Democratic vote hiding in every barn, house, and stable in the district. I'll update on those efforts tomorrow.

Do More Than Vote

Remember, we can laze about in our jammies drinking mocha frappuccinos and playing Jenga all day Wednesday. And on Thursday, we'll begin the tough work ahead. We'll fix how we do elections. We'll build voters too strong to succumb to irresponsible and disrespectful campaign tactics. We'll grow new channels of communication. We'll redraw the districts that look more like dinosaurs than units of representative democracy.

But tomorrow, our task is pretty simple -- get our voters to the polls! Find out how at Do More Than Vote.

Nancy's "Election 2006 Pennsylvania Tour" is brought to you by the AFL-CIO's Labor 2006 Program.