ROOPER-DOOPER

How to Build the Perfect Democratic Contender (ADAM
NAGOURNEY, June 29, 2003, NY Times)

"The self-deprecating charm of Joe Lieberman--you have got to start with that," said Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist. "And Bob Graham's resume. Al Sharpton's one-liners! No one has better one-liners than Al Sharpton. Howard Dean's ability to excite activists and new people." [...]

[J]ohn Edwards, the North Carolina senator, may seem a little too young and slight to be Leader of the Free World; in White House circles, he is mockingly known as the "Breck Girl." But it is not hard to find Democrats who would like to bottle his charm and personable campaign style. John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, may not seem as if he would be happy eating corndogs in the jostling crowd at the State Fair in Des Moines. But leave the congeniality to the resume-challenged Mr. Edwards: Mr. Kerry has a war record that any candidate would love--two tours in Vietnam that brought him a few medals, and a tour back home leading the opposition to the war.

Mr. Lieberman's campaign is introducing many Americans to the customs of the observant Jew, such as not working on Saturday. It also appears to have awarded him the franchise on the moral and ethical issues. The penchant of Senator Bob Graham to keep detailed notebooks chronicling the most mundane of chores--think: got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head--may give Democrats pause. But Mr. Graham, as a former member of the Senate intelligence committee, has authority in his challenges to Mr. Bush's efforts to protect the nation from terrorism. Better than that, he is from Florida.

Is there any candidate who can boast more legislative experience and ties to traditional sources of Democratic support than Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the former House minority leader? (Of course, that could be his big weakness as well.) Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, may seem ideologically out of step with a lot of voters, but he has already shown his ability to draw a lot of new people into the system.

Ummm...anybody happen to notice what's missing here? How about a candidate with some popular ideas?

The Democrats are brain dead and have been since Walter Mondale lost in 1984. Bill Clinton had sense enough to borrow the opposition's ideas and won by running as not just a moderate but a conservative Republican--tax cuts, executions, anti-China, etc.. But there's no room to George W. Bush's right and the Democratic Party faithful are tired of being the GOP Junior League. So, incredibly, this batch of candidates seems to have returned to that Mondalism--anti-anti-Saddam instead of anti-anti-communist; take back the Bush tax cuts, as Mondale wanted to take back the Reagan cuts; pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, anti-religious, anti-Vietnam (are they aware the war ended--disastrously for the Vietnamese people--thirty years ago?), etc.. They really have revivified dead flesh and made it walk (well, stumble) again. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 29, 2003 11:28 PM