I think you are dead wrong. The reason Dems in general have lost so much political clout is that they pretty much ceased pushing forth their own ideas and continue to simply bad mouth W. Many progressives hate GB for obvious reasons, and a constant stream of anger about his presidency serves to rally the base.

The problem is that these attacks alienates everyone else. People are beginning to think of Democrats as just "pundits" and not policy makers. I cannot remember the last Democratic party led initiative, in fact I’m not sure there has been one since Bubba left town. Daschle does nothing but sit around attacking Bush and that is obviously not helping his cause.

Progressives everywhere seem obsessed with Bush in the kind of unhealthy way the Republican congress was obsessed with Clinton. This is a problem Democrats need to acknowledge lest they make themselves irrelevant. Not to be picky but I have counted 23 out 28 stories on your blog right now directly related to negative attacks on the GOP and Bush.

A true Democratic candidate (I don't think there is one now) will realize that this is not about what Bush is doing wrong, it is about what they can do right for America. People do not respond well to whining, and unfortunate this is all they hear out of the Democratic party these days.

The 2000 election is over, I urge all progressives everywhere to let it go. Propose an alternative. Create a vision. That is the only way to have a shot at Bush in 04.

Sorry for the grammatical errors :)

It's ok - I'm sure I make a few grammatical errors of my own, eh? :)

As for your comments, you make some excellent points. Democrats DO need to tell people what they can do for us - why they're better, and how they're going to help the country. That is a very important part of the campaign.

My thought, though, is that Democrats could also get some milage out of promoting themselves as the people that you can expect something from. We should be able to have high expectations of our Presidents, and a Democrat can point out that Bush wants people to have low expectations of him, but that they can expect more from a Democrat and here's exactly what they can expect - then go on and explain what it is they plan to do for the country and how they will benefit the nation as a whole.

You are both wrong... the simple fact is that dubbya is a complete moron. He was asked about whether he thought the middle east peace project would meet his expectations.

He meant to say that he has low expectations that the process would progress... but because he is a complete idiot who always tries to fake more intelligence than he has, he came out with another bushism, saying the stupidly embarassing, "I am the master of low expectations!"