Intensity

Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth in the subscription-only WSJ:

Republican voters are very discouraged. The intensity and party loyalty that Republicans need isn't there, and it's largely because they've abandoned their commitment to fiscal discipline. To the extent the debt limit reminds voters of that, it's not a good thing.

That may or may not be true. But I do know (and TX-28 was an example of this) that there isn't that much of intensity on our side either. They're discouraged because Republicans are fucking everything up and have trule abandoned just about every "conservative" principle in the pursuit of power and greed.

But our side is discouraged because Democrats aren't doing anything about it.

At this point, I suspect we won't make the predicted gains because most people feel helpless about the political situation in DC.

What every Democratic challenger should do at this point is run against DC. Not just against Republicans, but against the entire frickin' town. It's a mess. It's a disaster. Run against it. Run against Pelosi. Run against Frist. Run against DeLay. Run against Biden. Run against the Democratic consultants. Run against the whole lot of them.

Promise to shake shit up in DC, and maybe people will perk up. Maybe they'll decide they don't have better things to do on Election Day than trudging to the polls.