Frank, I have watched you, throughout this discussion remain civil in the face of the baiting. I fought off jumping in and pointing this out, because if you were willing to ignore this attitude from Nerd and maintain the civil, and intelligent, discourse then I had no business mucking it up. Congratulations on laying out your thoughts in a well thought out and understandable way.

How many times in the course of my career, have I seen these "new" Democrats? Several other candidates in my lifetime have been said to be re-energizing the left. What happens? Usually, because they are almost always cults of personality, the hordes of new, re-energized acolytes, when their candidate falls apart disappear and are never heard from again. I am hopeful the Dean followers won't be the same.

Nerd ..... get a grip. You think the enemy is Kerry. It isn't. It's George W. Your treatment of Frank, and the rhetoric you use, even while he is treating you with grace and respect, does not speak well. I hope you can see that politics are about ones principles and not about any one candidate. The only thing that is important this year is beating George W. Bush.

Frank, thanks for a great thread.

Mick