UNSOLICITED ADVICE

In his Opinion Piece "UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR DEMOCRATIC LOSERS" Richard Reeves starts out agressively:

NEW YORK -- Let's begin by stating the obvious: If the Democrats cannot win the 2006 congressional elections, they don't deserve to be a political party. They will survive as losers, of course, but only because American election laws are a contract between the Democratic and Republican parties to preserve each other no matter what happens.

But, one wonders if the republicans would be so eager to take over if they faced a country as economically looted and socially traumatised as ours is now. They might be tempted to do what in billards is called "play a safety" - that is, to aim to fulfill all the conditions of a legal move, while burying the cue ball in a place that makes it close to impossible for the opposing player to play a legal turn. When the opponent is unable to make a legal shot, the billard player is then rewarded with the cue ball in hand for the next play.

Perhaps the Dems would like to let the republicans stew in the juices that they've been cookin' up for the last seven or eight years... I hope not, (for the sake of all of us citizens) but I would not blame them for being unwilling to clean up after the facists and take the blame for their policies at the same time.

The problem for the Democrats on Iraq is that they cannot or will not come up with any credible arguments about what to do next. The Republican response -- "Follow the flag! Stay the course. Support our boys and girls against the ragheads" -- will once again top Democratic mealy-mouthed confusion and political cowardice.

A campaign that focuses only on Iraq will unite Republicans and divide Democrats. Anti-war feeling is now so high among liberals that it could defeat Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), a war enthusiast, in the Connecticut Democratic primary. In the California primary last month, an underfinanced and unknown anti-war challenger won 37 percent of the Democratic vote against Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) because of her reluctance to speak out against the war.*emphasis mine

Ok, perhaps Reeves is believing the MSM's spin about this race, but Lamont is more than a one issue candidate. In fact, he very eloquently laid out his views during the debate. Did Mr Reeves skip that part, or is he as cornfuselated as Lieberman was during the debate - continuing to wonder who Ned Lamont is even while Ned was right there not 6 feet away directly answering whatever was asked of him.

More and more Democrats are seeing Iraq as Vietnam in the desert, and they are going to do the same thing they have done in the past: struggle against each other rather than against the Republicans. Mention the name of Sen. Hillary Clinton, the obvious front-runner for the party's next presidential nomination, among liberal Democrats these days, and you get a tirade about her support of the war that more or less compares her to Dr. Strangelove.

So, politically, I would argue the war will take care of itself. People of all political persuasions already get it. Sooner or late, many Americans will see verbal attacks as anti-American diatribes. Politicians do not always do well by doing good or being right.
*emphasis mine

First off, if "People of all political persuasions already get it", then why would those same people think that politicians who are agreeing with them are being anti-American? Speaking for myself, I kinda enjoy being supported in my views.

I would also like to point out that the only people who think that Sen. Hillary Clinton is "the obvious front-runner for the party's next presidential nomination" are the republicans, for whom it's a favorite wet dream. Noone knows at this point who the Democratic Party will favor for president in two years, and I seriously doubt that it will be Hillary.

My advice, unsolicited, to Democrats would be to wage a campaign on local issues and the overall national governance of Republicans these last six years.

President Bush and the Republican Congresses came to power in an American superpower -- military, economic and moral -- with a balanced budget and what seemed unlimited future. Now, we are a debt-ridden country reviled around the world and scorned at home because of conservative positions and performance from stem cell research to New Orleans. The war in Iraq is only a symptom, not the cause, of the decline of the United States -- and that decline should be the Democratic issue of choice in 2006 and perhaps 2008 as well.

For unsolicited advice from a principled opponent, this is not bad, though I do not see the war as a symptom as much as a product of the neocon agenda, and an excuse to plunder our treasury for the enrichment of a world spanning elite. That the media continue to skew the words of progressives, and butcher the issues is a disservice to our democracy and is becoming a great danger in this post 9/11 world.