Lieberman dropped.

[M]

I, for one, am very sorry about that. Lieberman was something very rare in this country, a candidate who really works for America and not his respective party. Also a very classy fellow, specifically mentioning all of his fellow candidates (in sharp cntrast to Dean) and congratulating the winner. Except for the one line about denying Bush a second term, I agreed and was deeply moved by everything he said. He will never be president, but I think dems and GOPers alike should salute the continuing service of a great, bipartisan, and I belive, a truly good man.

[M]

Not quite. They have one more champion, Sen. Evan Bayh, who will likely run for president in 2008. But the party's mood is very mucj against him. Ponder this, democrats:

Any true liberal by any definition would support a war whose effect was to expand democracy, whatever they believed its purpose. Franklin, Jefferson, etc, supported shedding a lot of blood to espouse the cause of freedom. So did the European heroes of 1848, Lincoln, FDR, Churchill. A left whose defining feature is oppostion to any war under any circumstances is a tragedy.

Fortunately it doesn't win elections. Since 68, democrats have not been able to win elections w/o national security being a virtual nonissue in the context of the times. (76 outweighed by other factors like watergate and frst unelected president, as well as height of detente. 90s post Cold War dream world in which the public refused to confront WMD proliferation and terrorism as a significant and potentially devastating threat).

If Kerry makes the War on Terror an issue ("hope not fear", "Bush has exagerated the threat of terrorism"), a GOP landslide will be unavoidable. He may and should focus on other issues like the economy, the budget, healthcare, education, etc. But if he dares to cross the line into effectively aiding and abetting the enemy, he will reap the whirlwind.

[M]

Oh, good. When I heard most Republicans somewhere in NH do not like Bush, I though, "oh, no, a previously unknown rural souring on the president".  But thank gosh, you're not from NH, you're from Boston. Except fpr my uncle, I know of very few Boston Republicans. (My uncle is the only Republican in Cambridge).