The usual gang of righty haters over at Horsesass Ass have been crowing away ever since the Abramoff scandals, about how this would be the year the "fascist right wing" would be shown the door in Washington DC and around the country.  All the problems Bush and the Republicans have weathered have certainly made them vulnerable, even if a lot of the controversy is more imagined then real.  But the liberal congratulations are premature, since apparently the Democrats are having trouble getting behind a positive unified agenda.

Their rally cry was "anyone but Bush " which rang hollow to voters in 2004.  They certainly tried to capitalize on any fault of the President that they could, and to apply that to all Republicans with as broad a brush as possible.  It didn't work very well then, but their continued efforts may or may not pay off in the 2006 elections.

Now though, with Bush a Lame Duck President, and no clear GOP front runner (though McCain looks like he considers himself to be a contender), it is unclear who they will rally against, because they still seem more determined to be better then someone else, even if they don't know who yet.  

The Washington Post continues on where Sister Toldjah and I left off:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030102193.html

Democrats Struggle To Seize Opportunity Amid GOP Troubles, No Unified Message

By Shailagh Murray and Charles Babington

News about GOP political corruption, inept hurricane response and chaos in Iraq has lifted Democrats' hopes of winning control of Congress this fall. But seizing the opportunity has not been easy, as they found when they tried to unveil an agenda of their own.

Democratic leaders had set a goal of issuing their legislative manifesto by November 2005 to give voters a full year to digest their proposals. But some Democrats protested that the release date was too early, so they put it off until January. The new date slipped twice again, and now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) says the document will be unveiled in "a matter of weeks."

I was reading this article at Sister Toldjah's blog, and it made me laugh.

You see, one of the things that spurred me into blogging was having a letter to the editor published in Feb 2004, in the Seattle Times.  It wasn't my first brush with greatness, I have had several letters published in smaller papers, but this was the first large metropolitan paper, made me consider whether I wanted to pursue writing further.

Sure it's a silly cheesy smarmy beginning, but what the heck. 

But the irony was that I was making essentially the same observation about the democrats back then that some are saying today, and that is they have no vision for the future, they merely run on an anti Republican agenda.  The problem is that saying "the other guy is bad" only works in the long term if you can follow it up with "why I am better".  The article above may be reflecting towards their Iraqi policy, but it is symptomatic of the greater problem they have by focusing their agenda on winning, not on leading.

The forlorn democrats seem doomed by their failure to understand it.  You would think by now they would have learned.

For grins, here is my letter:

Anti matter erodes platform

As a nonpartisan voter, I want to say congratulations to Sen. John Kerry, as he continues to roll on to his party's nomination. Pity it will be for naught. I think the Democrats are going to fail. They have no actual vision for America beyond "Beating Bush."

While once the Democrats may have appealed to the working class or in some way had an identity of their own, they became the anti-Republican party during the Clinton years, and since the 2000 election they modified that to the anti-Bush party. If your whole party's focus has no vision for the future of the country, if it has no soul of its own outside being the negative counterpart to the other side, and if your actual agenda is "we need to beat Bush, because anyone is better then Bush" (quoted from Howard Dean recently), then your party will have a meaningless and empty platform.

Tomorrow the UW senate will meet once again.  The agenda as posted online does include the MOH Memorial Resolution, but in all reality it will be another week at least before a floor vote is taken on it.

I wish to make it clear this is not a delaying tactic, this is normal procedure. According to the Senate Chair, Alex Kim, with whom I exchanged emails last week:

I must inform you that it is unlikely that we will actually debate the new Medal of Honor resolution this Tuesday - it's still going to come up this week, but Senate resolutions have a normal two-week process.  Someone might move to bypass the rules and begin debate immediately this week, but it's unlikely that such a motion would pass.

I found his courtesy to be refreshing, but also somewhat revealing.  While I hold no stigma to this fact, it is clear that the many people in the Senate are highly aware of the implications concerning this vote.

Roadkill can denounce me for trying to encourage them to do what I consider to be the right thing, but the reality is that from advertising to lobbying the Government, we all try to influence and encourage those around us to and we are constantly being encouraged to do what someone else wants.  Encouragement may sound nicer, but in reality it's a softshoe on the hardsell more then anything else.

Remember that nearly everything in life is goal oriented.  Restaurants want you to eat their food exclusively, car dealers want you to buy their cars.  Even in the government the lobbying and campaign donations always are given to encourage someone we think might be sympathetic to our needs to vote our way on something.  Oh sure, to come out and just call it a bribe is sooo gauche, but let's be real here.  The whole point of donations is to support someone you hope will be helpful, to destroy your enemy who opposes you by supporting his enemy or to encourage an undecided person to swing your way by our favor.  It's ugly but hey, that's life and that's politics.