Tuesday, November 05, 2002 DATA: The latest Zogby polls. - 3:05:56 AM THE POINT: Believe it or not, but Joe Conason nails it on the head. He's wrong about Minnesota (I think Coleman will win) but right about the Democrats in general. Here's what he says: But there is no Democratic leadership willing to do more than look for weaknesses on the other side. If Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt have an alternative economic program, they have kept it well hidden throughout this campaign. What they have, at the moment, is a program of opposition. They are the opposition, so that's fine. Such a program may sustain them through this election. But it won't get them far over the next two years, when a new leader will emerge in the struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination. The old saying that you can't beat somebody with nobody applies to policy as well. You can't beat something with nothing - although you may be able to hold your own.

Of course, I think Conason understates the Democratic problem. The reason they will likely not win the House today is quite simply because they have provided almost no reason whatever to vote for them. On the war, they're all over the map, with the center of gravity being an attempt to appear pro-war while privately being against it. On the economy, they have no clear program. They're against the Bush tax cut, but they are not for reversing it. Then there's warmed-over, Mondale soup - comforting but hardly exciting. What remains is simply a defense of certain entrenched interests - mainly the elderly and African-Americans. I'm not saying the Republicans are a whole lot better. I wish they had more imaginative economic proposals, more courage in their attempt to reform social security, more gonads in resisting the creeping socialization of America's healthcare system. But at least we know they're pro-war, pro-Bush, and anti-tax. That's far clearer than the Democrats. Which is to say that, whatever happens, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans actually deserve to win. But the Democrats actively deserve to lose.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2002