Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Denial is a Blue State

Rich Galen

Monday November 08, 2004

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The Democrats have the blues. Their guy lost the White House. Their candidates lost campaigns for the US House and Senate. The map of the United States looks like someone spilled a full can of red paint upon it; the few blue states now include the State of Denial.

A headline in Saturday's New York Times: "Advisers Urge Kerry to Flex Power in Senate and Party"

This is mildly amusing to those of us who live and work in the National Capital area because we had been given to understand that a woman named Hillary Clinton is still a member of the Senate and a man named Bill Clinton remains a member of the Democratic Party.

In 19 years as a United States Senator, John Kerry never flexed any power because he never had any power to flex. He has been content to hide in the considerable shadow of the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy.

And it is not clear that anyone, at any time, in the history of the Democratic party has much cared to ask John Kerry for his political advice.

In fact, Kerry's run as a force in American politics lasted exactly 290 days. It began this past January 19 with his victory at the Iowa Caucuses and ended two days after election day when the Associated Press (and CNN) finally painted Iowa red, declaring Bush the winner.

Having spent the past four years claiming how deeply divided America remains, the National Democratic Party and its allies in the popular press are shocked that their man, John Kerry, isn't measuring for drapes in the West Wing.

The Democrats and the press corps have decided to share a ski chalet this winter in the State of Denial. They cannot - will not - believe that George W. Bush actually won so they are pretending it didn't happen.

Nevertheless, they have decided that, as John Kerry would have healed the nation's wounds (because he would have said and done the things the Democrats and the Press agree with) they continue to try and make the case that somehow it is up to President Bush, alone, to kiss the national boo-boo and make it all better.

In the NY Times article, former Clinton spokesman and Kerry campaign advisor Mike McCurry said, "If President Bush indeed wants to earn the support of people who supported Kerry, then he'll probably have to deal with Kerry."

If the President does choose to reach out to Democrats in the Senate he'll probably look toward the guy who will take over the reins of the Senate Democrats, Harry Reid of Nevada (Red State); or the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus of Montana (Red State).

If the President really wants to be seen reaching across, he can deal with head Dem on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden of Delaware (Blue State) or the Senior Dem on Armed Services, Carl Levin of Michigan (Blue State).

There are 39 other Democratic Senators with whom the President can deal before he gets to John Kerry. Used to be more, before the powerful political machine we call John Kerry cost the Democrats four seats in the Senate.

We are waiting for a Democrat - ANY Democrat - to say something like:

Look, Bush won. He won big. He won in a lot of places by a lot of votes. The Kerry campaign was based solely blaming and complaining. We Democrats offered nothing positive and the American people saw through us. We should reach out to the President and tell him we would like to work with him on the important issues facing our nation.

We are likely to wait a very long time for that statement. It is more likely we will hear more like this goofball who told Reuters "I'm going in on Monday and getting a new passport. I'm not leaving yet, but I'm getting prepared."

It will shock you, I know, to learn that he was attending something called the "Green Festival Environmental Conference" in San Francisco.

Democrats who do not live on the coasts need to wrest control of their party back from the California/New York/Massachusetts wing.

Otherwise the number of Blue states will continue to shrink and their Party will continue to swim in denial.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the articles noted above, a nice Mullfoto, and a Catchy Caption of the Day which made me laugh 911 times.

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