A quiet day for the president

No public comments, no more "hypotheticals."

Published November 7, 2006 7:39PM (EST)

It's a big day for politics all around the country, but things look to be very, very quiet at the White House today. From Tony Snow's press gaggle:

Reporter: What is the president's mood like today about the election?

Snow: The president is in a good mood. Let me tell you what will be going on with the president today, because a lot of you are interested in that. No planned public events. He'll be having dinner with Brad Freeman and some members of staff. Karl Rove and a few others will be up in the residence tonight. The president will be making phone calls. But we are not anticipating any public statements out of the White House. . . .

Reporter: Tony, if the Democrats do take the House control --

Snow: We don't answer "if control" questions.

Reporter: There would be a phone call from the president, presumably, is that right?

Snow: The president makes phone calls on election night. I'm just not going to get into hypotheticals ...

Snow: Will there be any opportunity to see him watching results tonight?

Snow: I doubt it. No plans for that, no.

Reporter: ... the integrity of voting, any reports?

Snow: There are two things. Number one, yes, you want to make sure that you've got integrity of voting, and we hope that everything will work smoothly. We also hope that people will not try, as happened some in 2004, to manufacture complaints with the idea of trying to cast doubts on the efficiency and the efficacy of the system. There have been some reports about attempted voter fraud, and certainly, we hope any and all voter fraud in any way is detected and dealt with before Election Day. It's important to have an election that reflects the will of voters on Election Day.

Reporter: The vice president -- do we know if the hunting trip has concluded?

Snow: No, I don't know. I'll refer all those to the vice president's office.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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