There is a great echo chamber in this nation, and when a word such as "liberal" enters into the political lexicon, it takes some time for the ring to wear off. No doubt, Democrats have that ringing between their ears as "liberal," it seems, is the word that brought down John Kerry in places like West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico.
In some sick way, much as one may be gloomily impressed with the ability of the flu to change form every year, it is hard not to be amazed at how effectively the Republican Party tacked the word "liberal" on to Senator John Kerry while making that word synonymous with "irresponsible" in the same blow.
Men like Michael Moore, who chide Senator Evan Bayh, whom I spent a fair amount of time observing and speaking to while at the ill-fated Democratic National Convention, for being, among other things, a proud political moderate, fail to see the self-defeating stance they are taking. The United States, more than any other time since perhaps Ronald Reagan assumed the Presidency in his mandate - a true mandate, not a skin-of-the-teeth 51% - is moving to a more conservative perch.
Partly because of the sobering and frightening effects of what happened to an underprotected and unaware America in 2001, and partly because, as sad as it is to say, Americans have good reason to be wary about the Democrats. Never in recent memory has our Democratic Party suffered so many setbacks so close together: Bill Clinton's uncontrolled libido in 1998, Al Gore's inept handling of the Florida debacle in 2000, a Republican sweep in 2002, and Senator Kerry's collapsed landslide last year.
The task now is to bring the Democratic Party back to good terms with the American people, a task no less daunting than the rebuilding of the Republican Party after the election of 1912 and the great ideological split it entailed. In order to speak to the center-right, the Heartland, that miniature cross-section of the entire American electorate, it is the duty of the Democratic Party to nominate a man who speaks the language of the people. Senator Evan Bayh, even when he drifts in to Al Gore-esque trails of droning, is that man.
Senator Bayh is a moderate Democrat with ideals that harken back to the party of Bill Clinton, to John F. Kennedy, to the principled and measured leadership of Harry Truman. Much like Truman, "Give 'em Hell Harry," Bayh speaks bluntly to the people, in a language they can understand, not mincing words and backtracking as Senator Kerry was so prone to do. With Evan Bayh, what you see - what you hear - is what you get.
2008 is as best a chance to take back the White House and Congress as Democrats have had in eight years, and it would be a crime to waste that opportunity by nominating another ultra- liberal Democrat who cannot communicate with the common folks, the men and women who work long days and worry not about the complexities and intricacies of some confusing foreign diplomatic policy, but about how they will send their children to college, whether retirement money will be there for them, who worry that they will have to keep voting for Republicans simply because the Democrats fail to field a candidate who does not seem like the stereotypical bowtie Yale graduate. If we aim to win - if we aim to return to our roots in 2008 - Evan Bayh is the best choice we can make.
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