Sad to say, this is the sort of thing that happens when most of the normal people have bolted from the tent, leaving mostly hard-line ideologues behind.

If the Democratic Party is ever to be truly relevant again in America, it must recapture its old place as the champion of the working man and the middle class. That means, it has to be within shouting distance of the values of the working man and the middle class. That's anathema to the unflinching true believers in charge of the party today.

I, for one, am committed to changing the party. It is not in a healthy place. And that's not healthy for the country as a whole. With so little real, rational discourse going on, the marketplace of ideas in this country is in danger of becoming a monopoly shop.

I totally concur - see my post below on the subject.

Michael Moore's rant was actually much more coherent than I expected. It was written as though he may actually have puckered abit. Then again, if directly affecting the outcome of presidential election in favor someone of somebody you despise and causing the further consolidation of Congress in the hands of the Evil Ones doesn't make you pucker, not much will, eh?

Frank, there is a rather large heap of people out there who are suffering a big bout of depression right now. happens when someone votes out of hate and the man they hate so much won, and won BIG. the S&P is up 7% in 3 days, so far. the only thing that will keep it really booming is these people who are suffering deep depression/denile will stay out of the market. not until the medication kicks in will these folks get back into stocks, then we can sell our positons to them...in about 4-5 years.

T. McGaha is right, but I don't see that happening at all. I think there is going to be brutal fight for the Dem Party, with the Michael Moore gang winning it, and the DEMs moving off the far left scale. There just aren't enough conservative and moderate activist Democrats to stop them from their flights of fancy. I see more and more leaving, not making a big fuss about it, but giving up and saying this is a party that's just not listening to me anymore. Expect the north midwest states to fall red pretty soon (MN, Wisc., Mich & PA), leaving Illinois as the last noncoastal state to be democratic. Dems have forgotten what it means to be a party, to have positive ideas, to expect differences of opinion, and argue them, rather than referring to them as "stupid", "bigots", "racist", and on and on and on. It will take a defeat of Mondale '84 proportions to change them, and that hasn't happened yet

Carl's probably right, but despair is a sin. I won't give up 'till they throw me out.

In re: Arafat, I had a nasty stray thought. "The whole world struggles for the right to Arafat's burial place, the loser having to take it." Not charitable in the least, but the old boy doesn't deserve a whole lot of charity.