If the whole point is to offer the "sharpest contrast" to Bush, the DNC should locate Ussama bin Laden and run with him.

But is tracking just to the right of Gus Hall going to get Dennis any votes, or is he just here to play the in-house anti-captialist DNC version of Nader, a left-wing vaccination shot?

It only serves to demonstrate the fractious nature of the 2003 democratic party. They are less a unified force FOR something than they are several score forces AGAINST something, and that, my friends, is the hard-sell of 2004.

Stay bitter, stay mad, vote democratic.

How upbeat.

Exactly right, Torpedo. That's the Democrats' whole problem. They are proving themselves to be shockingly stupid. Opposing a popular president is going to win the election? How do they figure that? What they should be doing is praising Bush for what people think he did right, talking about how they would do it better, and opposing those things that a lot of people are less than pleased with. I'm sure they'll do a lot of the latter but that alone won't work. They've got to realistically address those issues on which most people agree with President Bush.

But Lynn, agreeing with Bush too much is what they feel defeated them in the 2000 election. They need to spend some time in the wilderness before they have any hope of regaining their sanity.

True.
They have, collectively, squandered most of their resume filling time, energy and credibility chasing George Bush over bagatelle after bagatelle, and now their pedestrian exploits are the sum total of their accomplishments.
They just don't make democrats like they used to.