I give up on the "cookie" business.

But, as I said before, the larger question should be which fights are worth it, and which result in just energizing the other side.

Mudcatters have to start realizing, and now would not be a minute too soon, that Mudcat sentiment on several issues, specifically on organized religion, is not shared by most of the country.

It appears, for instance, that 40% of the HISPANIC vote went to Bush this time. Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US. You do not want to write off 40%, nor, if you are a liberal Democrat, to get them accustomed to voting for Republicans. When people first become citizens, they tend to be proud of the fact, proud to say the Pledge of Allegiance (no problem with "under God"), proud to serve in the armed forces, etc. And a lot of new citizens are conservative in many ways.

Trying to get "under God" removed from coins, the Pledge of Allegiance--(yes, I know "under God" is a recent addition, and that the Pledge itself started, I believe only in the 1930's).----- etc. wins you no points with most Americans. They are perfectly happy to sing Christmas carols at school, to see the 10 Commandments at their courthouse, etc. They don't see the 10 Commandments at the courthouse as the first wedge of Taliban USA.

Parts of Pennsylvania, for instance---- (in fact, large swatches between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh), --- are sometimes called "Alabama, Pennsylvania". Also large parts of Ohio are conservative. Minnesota and Michigan have lots of religious conservatives. Don't write them off.

I'm not even talking about the huge expanse of Red states in the south and west.


I don't consider myself religious. I certainly don't go to church regularly. But I do consider myself politically aware. If I were Hillary's advisor, the first thing I'd tell her is to start going to a church regularly, if she's not already--obviously one that reflected her beliefs.   Actually I think it's too late for her for other reasons--her image is too set in the public mind. Remember how joyful Doug R. was at the prospect of her running.

Remember the only 2 Democrats who have won since 1968? Both Carter and Clinton were seen in the public mind as religious men, (albeit in Clinton's case as more Mary Magdalene than Jesus.) Also both were Southerners.

If you want to win the US presidency, what you probably need is a white male southerner who is seen as religious.

There are lots of good issues for a liberal southern Democratic male to run on--if the true believer liberals don't knock him out in the primaries. The thing to do is make common cause with conservatives, especially new citizens. Run on the minimum wage, on the
environment, on corporate malfeasance, on the fact that this "economic recovery" has lop-sidedly benefited the rich.

Don't let the Neanderthals who now run the Republican party (and, unfortunately, the US now) typecast Democrats as Godless weaklings.

One of Bush's best applause lines was when he would come into virtually into any small town and say "John Kerry says the heart and soul of America is in Hollywood" (where Whoopi Goldberg and some others had obscenely trashed him at a Kerry fundraiser) " But I say the heart and soul of America is right here in (name of town)."

Worked like a charm.


An interesting letter to the Wall St Journal (12 Nov 2004) encapsulated it: ( Democratic) "party intelligentsia regard patriotism as hopelessly antiquated....they regard devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, and Texans, among others...as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide".

Don't do it, if you want to win elections.