TIME FOR SOME TOUGH GUYS

The 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections were damned close.

There is no doubt that the GOP had a little of the best of it going for them in Fla. all three times. They cheated, but how much? If we had a Democratic governor there, we would have cheated too.

I believe that 2004 was just about as fair as elections always are, which is not entirely. Joe Kennedy begged, borrowed, bought and stole every vote he could for his son Jack, but as the victorious boy wisecracked, his rich daddy was "damned if he'd pay for a landslide." Hubert Humphrey, the liberal that year, got screwed, blued and tattooed by some tough Irish boys and their pals in the WV primary. The media loved Jack and covered up his mistakes.

So what else is new? When it happens to the GOP, it's a good thing, not a bad thing.

I say, let's stop whining and start winning. If you can't take a hard punch in the face and a dirty kick to the gizzard, you don't belong in politics. I say again, I like what the Doc says about fighting off the ropes. If there was ever a guy the Democrats need inside the tent pissing out, it's Howard Dean. His famous scream says something about the guy--he'd rather be James Carville, coaching the troops, than Bill Clinton, basking in the limelight. And you know what? I like him much better as DNC chair than as candidate in 2008.

The candidate in 2008 should be John Kerry. Otherwise it looks like we made a mistake the first time, which we didn't. Better still would be Gore-Kerry. We don't need any more new guys; we need guys who have proven they can stand up to beating. I like Hillary, a lot, but this is no time for a science experiment. We don't know if a woman can be elected president, and why would we pick 2008 to find out?

We have to win at the grass-roots level, which doesn't just mean seats in Congress. It means city council, county commission, judgeships, and water board member. Voter registration and GOTV are not everything, as Robert Parry points out, but they are the without which nothing of Democratic victory. Combined with an issue that the average person can understand--like increasing the minimum wage to $14/hour--the Dems can run the table again.