Democrats need to . . .

The pundits have been offering reams of advice for the Democrats like this. Here's mine: Be more like Republicans. That's about as useful as most of what I've seen.

Michael Barone, however, offers some valuable insight in to the mechanics of the Republicans' win. I don't think even he believes, though, that all the technical perfection can win without a message that resonates with the electorate. Kerry is blaming his loss on Osama's latest video, but that overlooks the fact that nobody ever really viewed Kerry himself as being interested in defeating terrorism. For a man who wants to be president to describe his goal as getting back to where terrorism is a "nuisance" is about at oblivious to the feelings people have about 9/11 as you can be. If it hadn't been for the all out effort of the media to defeat Bush, Kerry would have been a second McGovern.