Hi BartCop,
 
                      Been reading your site for a long time and been sending you email for as long time. Reading the
                      issues of late has caused some real consternation. Dem bashing, speculating about forming third
                      parties, telling folks that withholding support from the Democratic Party is somehow a good thing
                      and so forth is getting pretty dang close to the same short-sighted rhetoric we get from Naderites
                      and Michael Moore.
 
                      Carla Binion said it much better than I can:

                      http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=8571&mode=nested&order=0

                                "This is no time to hold grudges, because the stakes are too high. I hope
                                Democrats shock the GOP by turning up at polls in overwhelming numbers.
                                This won't be a vote for those who failed us on the war resolution, but a vote
                                against Dick Cheney's effort to eliminate all Congressional oversight of the
                                Vice-President and President; a vote against his effort to cripple Congress
                                and to make George W. Bush emperor.

                                We can deal with the Democrats we dislike LATER. Now is not the time.
 
                                In the upcoming elections, a vote for any Democrat is a vote to support
                                the good guys such as Senator Robert Byrd. It's also a vote against an
                                imperial presidency."
 

                      I was mad as hell about the vote on the war resolution. I expressed than anger in emails to the DNC,
                      to Tom Daschle and to anyone else that would listen. I even managed to get a critical letter to the
                      editor published in the Montgomery Advertiser. I did all of that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I blew
                      off the steam. On Monday, I logged on to the web sites of the DNC and a select few Democratic
                      candidates in close races, put the war resolution behind me and dug a little deeper into my rather
                      empty pockets.
 
                      We have to get through this election. We have to help the good guys like Robert Byrd and Paul
                      Wellstone. We have to give the party a workable majority and work hard to make our voices heard.
                      Come the next round of primaries, we can do that by nominating candidates that support the views of
                      their base.
 
                      Bashing Dems and advising people to withhold donations at this critical juncture heading into the last
                      few weeks of the campaign season is not only not smart, it is the exact result that Karl Rove had in
                      mind when he had his boy King George push the Iraq issue so hard after Labor Day. Divide and
                      conquer.
 
                      Daniel Webster once said "In union there is strength." Ben Franklin said "We must hang together or
                      assuredly we shall hang separately. "
 
                      We need to stand united, put our differences behind us, support the Democrats and deal with the
                      problems later. Like Carla Binion said: Now is not the time.

                     "The Ox"

                      Ox, you could be right.

                      Of course, we wouldn't even have this conversation if the Democrats
                      would remember we WON the last election, but they are church mouses.