Digby said it:
You will not find anyone amongst us who believes that the Bush administration's executive power grab and flagrant partisan use of the federal government is anything less than an assault on the Constitution.
Greenwald provided the essential gloss:
Is there a single one of those views which can remotely be described as fringe, radical, extreme, out of the mainstream, or even rigidly ideological?
...
Indeed, large percentages of Americans -- if not clear majorities -- embrace each of these beliefs.
Rudy McRomney's clear where he stands. Martha Stewart is famous for saying it:
It's a good thing.
The only disagreement among the Republican candidates is over how best to extend and amplify this admirable legacy.
So what do our leading Democratic Presidential candidates say? I'm not sure, but none of them are remotely echoing Digby's simple formulation. And that's too bad for a number of reasons.
The dissatisfaction with our current field is palpable both here at DailyKos and in the general public. And I think it largely stems from this issue and its corollaries. Are we preparing for a rerun of those memorable campaign themes:
- Democrats don't stand for anything;
- Democrats are weak?
A hot point of discussion in the diaries these days is who is committed to supporting the eventual Democratic nominee. I admit it. My vote is safe. But, so what!
If our only goal is to recapture the Presidency, we will be wasting a once in a generation opportunity to reset the direction of American policy. The next President should be seeking a mandate to repudiate and undo the Bush legacy. A campaign that does this has nothing to fear from a third-party candidacy (and nothing to fear from Mayor Bloomberg in either case). Anything less, though it gain the White House in 2009, just sets the stage for a more virulent recurrence of right-wing ascendancy in the not-too-distant future.
My vote may be safe. But however much I'll do for a campaign that seeks the safe route to the Presidency; I'll do so much more for a campaign that really seeks to lead the country in a new direction. And I think the same is true for just about every user here at DailyKos. It's just human nature.