Open Letter to the Democratic Party

The biggest mistake that the Democrats can make the next time around is nominating someone who currently has "Senator" before their name. Accordingly, Hillary (no), Kerry (gol no!), Biden and Bayh should all be ruled out. These folks are either too polarizing, too unknown, too uninspiring or have too much baggage. Moreover, irrespective as to how the elections turn out this fall, the next 2 years do not herald a period of major, ground-breaking initiatives and programs from Congress, and thereby give the above candidates fewer accomplishments on which to run. This underscores an additional point, which is that the intricacies, complexities and mundanities of lawmaking make it very easy to attack a senator's record in such a way that is hard to craft an answer which avoids a discussion of arcane matters and does not confuse voters further (e.g., Kerry's disastrously worded "I voted for it before I voted against it").

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A simple bit of advice when thinking ahead to 2008: It is imperative that you nominate someone from outside of the beltway. I'm thinking someone like Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa or former Virginia governor Mark Warner, and John Edwards should still be considered as well. People who produced tangible, (hopefully) bipartisan results at a state level are the ones most likely to connect to the common voter and give the Democrats a better chance of winning.