I'll never forget reading Stephen Ambrose's 'Nothin' Like It In The World', about building the transcontinental Railroad.

And how many building the railroad concluded it could not be done until the Indians who were interfering with it were stopped, with... um.. extreme prejudice.

Now who can blame the Indians? AND... the people builing the RR were correct. As long as Indians were burning and killing the RR and its workers, it could never be built.

And the Indians did in fact have their supporters and advocates. And to a man (or woman) those advocates lived in the plush palors of the East, high-income, sleeping under a well-built roof all their lives, never hungry.... oh, yeah, and living on stolen Indian land in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Cities amply served by up and running railroads bringing all the goods and services they desired to those very palors.

So, since the beginning of time, maybe, it is those who benefit most from the blessings of civilation, and therefore by that very fact exist as far as possible from civilization's jagged and sometimes bloody edges, who are most likely to be outraged at the actions of those who struggle with real and living barbarians at those very borders.

In essence, one could say that such people are saying "I got mine.... now all that matters is that I get to feel good about it as well".

Meanwhile, those who still know what it is to struggle for so much of what the former take for granted, and whom are aware of how fragile such things can be, take a very different view of similar struggles on the frontier edges of civilization.

We see this play out as small as Litchfield vs. Beacon Falls, and as big as the US vs. Europe.

People never change.

Ann Coulter's new column claims that Ned Lamont is the great-nephew of Corliss Lamont. I quickly researched this and some others are saying the new Connecticut Democratic Senate candidate is the grandson, and not the great-nephew, of Corliss Lamont. Anybody know the real story?

If he's related to Corliss Lamont, that's just icing on the cake: A relative of an upper-crust, Stalinist ACLU honcho wins the rich suburbs and defeats the preferred candidate of the blue-collar Democrats who were once the party's backbone.

Think of the fun we can have with this (scroll down for article). Those TV ads just write themselves, don't they?

It looks like Ned Lamont won the Republican areas.

Could it be cross-over sabotage?

Rich white folk are his base.

Matt, the ads write themselves, but it takes human intervention to get them on TV. Just playing back Democrats own words would be all that's necessary, but somehow, it doesn't happen. Rush does montages of Democrats repeating the same words, like the gravitas medley about Cheney. They're hilarious, but where are the ad people who can translate this gold mine of material into an effective ad campaign?

I often think most Republican elected officials would rather return to the go along to get along easy way of life before they were expected to help the president secure our way of life.

erp:

The problem with just playing back words is that people don't listen - there needs to be a visual as well.

Mitch McConnell ran ads against Walter Huddleston in 1984 showing bloodhounds going all over the state of Kentucky, trying to sniff out Huddleston, who had missed quite a few votes in the Senate. The close-ups of the dogs sniffing for a US Senator were memorable.

When the Dems attacked Trent Lott for using a black driver, he made an ad with the driver (who was a security agent first) looking right in the camera and telling the voters of Mississippi that he was a bodyguard as well as a driver, and that he wasn't anybody's 'boy'. Lott's opponent was never heard from again.

What the GOP needs to do is run ads that show headlines from 1938 (including pictures of Kristallnacht). And then ask the voters if they want a reprise. Or run ads showing pictures of Nasrallah, Ahmadinejad, Khameini, Assad, and some Taliban. Ask the voters why these men are worthy of trust and 'negotiation'. The GOP also needs to attack the media. McCain could do it, but I doubt if anyone else has the nerve.

Jim, of course the pictures are critical as well.