Today's NY Times Op-Ed Piece by Bob Herbert, HERE (requires registration) hammers a theme that should concern Democrats and those of us that generally lean away from the Republican party: Yeah, the Republican leadership is on a streak of nearly unprecedented target practice on their own feet, but unless Democrats do more than stand on the sidelines and snicker, a great opportunity will be squandered.

I've pounded this drum myself,HERE, but Herbert (who I usually find to be the most predictable aka boring NY Times Op-Ed columnist) says it better and on a slightly more public stage.

"What the Democrats have to do is get off their schadenfreude cloud and start the hard work of crafting a message of hope that they can deliver convincingly to the electorate - not just in the Congressional elections next year, but in local elections all over the country and the presidential election of 2008.

That is not happening at the moment. While Americans are turning increasingly against the war in Iraq, for example, the support for the war among major Democratic leaders seems nearly as staunch and as mindless as among Republicans. On that and other issues, Democrats are still agonizing over whether to say what they truly believe or try to present themselves as a somewhat lighter version of the G.O.P.

I wonder what Harry Truman would think about today's Democratic Party?"

I'm not a big Hillary C fan (I get McGovern flashbacks when I think of her getting the Presidential nomination), but I'm hoping that she and other Democratic leaders can come up with their own Contract for America offering HOPE, rather than the Contract ON America being foisted on us by the current administration.

Posted by John H on Monday, October 17, 2005 at 7:45 AM | Permalink