COOL HAND DEMOCRATS (from Henry Hanks):

Not spooked by class warfare (Donald Lambro, October 31, 2002, Washington Times)

[A] detailed memo that Messrs. Carville, Shrum and Greenberg circulated to Democratic officials said, "While the economy is creating the desire for change and impatience with the Republicans, it is not the kind of wedge or unambiguous campaign issue that should become your sole focus in the last week." Statistics from Mr. Greenberg's Oct. 22-24 poll of 1,001 likely voters delivered the bad news: Republicans have a one-point edge over the Democrats on who can best handle the economy. "Today, the country splits evenly on which party to trust on the economy," according to the memo.

The poll gave voters a variety of hypothetical tests to measure what issues triggered the strongest responses for the Democrats.

The surprise finding: When voters are given a choice between "the Republican candidate with their broad message on security, taxes and pro-prescription drugs against a Democrat focused on getting the economy moving and critiquing Republican policies — the contrast produces no shift to the Democrats. The economy is what creates the mood for change, but it has not been sufficiently polarized to make this an economy election for your campaigns in the last week," the memo said.

So, they can't mention foreign policy or the economy, which leaves them election-fixing in NJ, SD, & MN; gay-bashing in MT, HI, and SC; exploiting the barely cold corpse of Paul Wellstone; and at some point this weekend we should see them trot out their Old Faithful--the race card. This is what's left of the Party of FDR. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 31, 2002 3:10 PM