Most of you all know my political views, for the most part, but I feel sort of obliged to say something out loud about the Democratic party. I'm worried about it. Really worried.

If they can't pull off an election in today's climate, much less not get their asses handed to them in the house and senate as well, then there's trouble. When every person with even a semi-public life, from the Dixie Chicks to Eminem to Ben Affleck, can't energize the media elite enough to oust what some would call the worst President ever, then what's going on?

Many of you are probably wondering what I'm smoking to cause me to worry about the left, but, this is how I boil it down: we are constantly hearing about how our country is divided, which is apparently supposed to be a bad thing. Why is it all that bad? Want to see a good example of an undivided country? Try Iran. Yep, they're all in agreement that the Americans (and Iraqis) must die, Jews are holy land stealing devils incarnate, women must be beaten for talking to a man she doesn't know, religious leaders should run the country, and if you steal a loaf of bread you get your goddamn hand chopped off. Isn't it great when people share a single unified vision without any room for dissent?

How does this apply to my view of the Democratic party? Simple, with this miserable failure of an election laying at their feet I fear that their only option to build a formidable base capable of winning is to take a hard turn towards the center; to "McCain" the party up if you will. If you currently can't stand the fact that the two major parties have the same view on the war on drugs, just wait till they have the same opinion on gun control, abortion, terrorism, homosexuality, the UN, globilazation (or isolationism), the enviroment, public schooling, the death penalty, etc. We have a voting population so dependent upon getting their stances on issues from only two parties, what happens when they begin to meld together, or one of them simply fades away? We might as well install a dictator at that point.

There is of course a small chance that their reaction will be to take an even harder turn to the left. This would probably please the democratic "values voters" a lot, but I think it may also be a boon to third parties due to the fact that the centrist voters that would be turned off by a idealistic Democratic party, yet clinging to the center too much to vote Republican, may look for viable third parties such as the Libertarians to champion their cause. This, of couse, will almost definately not happen, but a man can dream.