keep up the good work

Bye

keep up the good work

Bye

keep up the good work

Bye

A few points:

1. It is impossible to discuss Democrats without recognizing that there are at least two groups to address. The first is the stereotypical Democrat, who may still exist, particularly at the higher levels of the party – someone who is inclined to look to the govt. for solutions.

But the second group, which, in my milieu is an enormous majority, puts its trust in the market and in competition. We are, for lack of a better term, more libertarian than those who proceeded us. To the extent we are more comfortable with taxes than Republicans or Libertarians, it’s because we’re sure that while effort and other merit characteristics play a significant part in success, we’re under no illusion that (a) it is the whole story, or (b) that the individual is clearly the appropriate unit of productivity. And that, in the end, is probably what we want most – return on investment.

Freedom – hell, we’re all about freedom. We’re not the ones bitching about Desperate Housewives or clothing malfunctions or blowjobs in the Oval. We deeply don’t care.

2. Given that, it’s incomprehensible to think that you vote Bush if you want to accomplish things. What metrics could you possibly be looking at? Iraq has moved from “Democracy in the Middle East” to “Allawi – 50% less brutal than Saddam.” We took the world’s good will from 9/11 and spent it on …what? Clinton moves the unemployment rate bar lower, and this President promptly resets it – “historically, we’re doing very well.” That’d be great if we hadn’t just seen that unemployment could go lower without inflation going crazy.

In that context, Republicans’ desires to “stretch” or whatever, are great, but it basically sounds like hippie talk to me – what have they actually accomplished?

I should probably say that the Republican party can probably be split into centrists (GHWB) and the red staters (GWB), as well. The difference between the centrists of the two parties is minimal. That’s why you see any number of Democratic fantasies about McCain or (in my case) Weld or GHWB or who will you. If you’re a centrist, the reason you chose the Democratic party is b/c we’re closer to control there; you’ve got no shot with the Republicans – that’s why Powell’s gone and Cheney’s not.

3. To the extent that you hear about Dems that want more federalism, it’s b/c we can’t believe that Republicans looked at this incompetent and pulled the trigger for him. We don’t think “oh, you’re evil” or something like that. We just now know that you have such a vastly different criteria for success and failure that (a) it’s hard to imagine how we’ll get together on this, and (b) we’re more than a little scared that you’re going to drive the country into a ditch, so we’d like to preserve (to the extent possible – we’re still one nation) the blue bits if we can.