But compare the technical sophistication of the RNC gotv with the creaky mechanics of the opposition.  I handed out literature for kerry - it was badly written, blah, and on the doors we found just great and obviously smartly targeted republican material. Clearly, the kerry people thought that cross indexing databases was not interesting.

I don't think the right finds redstate strategic. But one of the sad things about everyone from Sierra Club to Dem campaigns has been how closed those groups are. Even out here in the boonies, we get that sad moment of recognition as yet another JFK school chucklehead is introduced as the head of something or another.

Well, it seemed to be an assumption in your materials and that struck me as odd.

Actually, the right has done very well by promoting on merit. Ken Mehlman is a lot smarter, harder working, and more effective than Bob Shrum.

I think it is sometimes progressiv and sometimes not.

And that is why the DC Liberals (the issue groups etc) are poison to progressive politics - they eat from the same bowl as the MIC.

So it was OK for Led Zepplin to live in mansions they got from recycling the work of black musicians, and deeply immoral for Willy Dixon to sue them?

Here's progressive values. Let multinationals take the work of anyone who doesn't have a massive marketing and sales organization and profit from it.

Copyright is a labor law. People who stupidly parrot the "RIAA is bad" line are, in effect, calling for a return to the good old days when publishers controlled the market and artists were on the street asking for change.

The over-reach of the RIAA is not an argument for the exploitation of artists.

What nonsense. The opposition to Joe was due to (a) his support for the Iraq war and (b) his role as a back-stabber. Many of us who abhor Joe supported Casey and Murtha and other conservative democrats. And if you think the Senator from the Insurance Industry represents popular opinion in red-states, you are deluded.

The NM Dems seem addicted to running weak candidates. The problem is that the environmentalists have run off to work on their karma in the Green party and no credible progressive candidates are coming up through the lower offices. Marty Chavez is a sellout, but at least he knows how to campaign and organize.

I didnt like Ford either, but he did come very close and your bitterness is out of place.

I liked DK at TPM's post today about a Dem Senate majority with Lieberman being better than a Dem Senate minority without the Great Moralizer. But of course, it is probably true for him - he sounds like a member of the permanent government. For the rest of us, who would have to watch the Democrats held hostage, losing on every critical issue, forced to allow Lieberman and the Date Rape Gang slice and dice every conference report, it would be much worse.

The press had no problems with the undynamic story line of "popular war-time president" and, in fact, stuck too it even when significant minorities dissented. And, the next obvious twist to this story is the type of administration collapse that Nixon suffered. So there is no excusing the press - they act as an arm of the Republican party and their efforts to collaborate in the imagineering foundations of the government are unstinting.

Def: "send messages": Make another totally symbolic and powerless gesture during losing.

Why is it that "progressive" candidates rarely win local office and gain the experience and networking needed before they run for higher office?

The problem with the "centrist" business democrats is that they don't understand that business is itself political. Big companies like to reduce taxes on wealth, prevent competition, increase corporate influence on government, and reduce labor costs/power - in other words, big companies are inherently republican. Big companies that are enmeshed in a network of similar companies that have a socially limited management class  permitted to extract giant amounts of booty from the system are naturally right wing republicans looking for short term gain. To permit big companies to control the media is to give control to right wing republicans. The internet is the remaining media not content controlled by right wing republicans.