Reply #78: We need someone who can convey a Vision,

[salin]

who can carry a message that resonates with people - and that resonation should be in a way that a) folks see as relevant to their daily lives, and b) "makes sense" to them.

Forget about worrying to find who someone who Rove can't character assassinate - if there isn't a target on the back - he will paint one there. Anyone will get slimed in the most vicious way. The better we plan for the slams far before they deliver them (ala what they did in the initial staging for W) in ways that make them easier to quickly neutralize. For the first half of the general campaign - Kerry was excellent at this. Sadly, in the early fall, stopped being as effective and canny at returning the lob in a way that made the grenade, a dud. In my eyes, it wasn't the swifties that were the turning point (though they DID shift his growing momentum), it was falling for the trap laid by Rove... ala the question... knowing what we know now would you still have voted for the war. Answer "no" - and appear to be hanging the troops out to dry; Answer "yes" - and validate the idea that a preemptive war with no threat is legitimate... OR (because that reality of the words spoken by bush is just too ugly for most americans to get their head around - so they choose not to acknowledge it) - make it sound like one agrees with the contemporary excuse for the war - that it was all about democracy in the first place.

I agree with much of what you write. We need someone who can resonate with people with a message that stirs. As I write this, John Edwards (who I was not behind in the primaries...btw) comes to mind. Not him, necessarily - but the type of speaker who can lead those listening to "see" his Vision.

Frankly worse than someone perceived as you suggest as too left... would be someone like the utterably unable to inspire, but attractive, Evan Bayh. Appears to stand for little (and this from one who has voted for him for state office and federal office), rarely willing to "fight". Little fire in rhetoric. But "safe" in many peoples' eyes. He is Indiana's corresponding part for Dan Quayle - with a tad more intelligence.