SAY IT LOUDLY AND SAY IT OFTEN

Howard Dean delivers a simple but effective one-liner that should become a mantra for Democrats:

Dean also described Bush's desire to privatize social security as "nutty."

"Americans do not want to privatize social security," he said. "They're too smart to turn social security over to the people who ran Enron."

It works for lots of other issues too, and not just on independents -- thoughtful Republicans are susceptible. Case in point: Yesterday I caught a ride home from work with a friend who is active in the Republican Party in a suburban Dallas county (I won't be driving for another month and sometimes it's tough for someone from the fam to do the honors). We began by talking about her personal financial problems since her divorce and segued into the bankruptcy bill, which she is furious about. (Funny how attitudes are affected when politics hits you personally.) I noted that I agreed with her and was disgusted with those Democrats who voted for the bill. From there I moved on to the financial mismanagement in the Iraq War, the wild spree of spending and waste under the Bush administration, etc., and watched her become more and more agitated. Not once did she try to defend BushCo, especially when we began linking it to the corruption rampant in recent years. I'm not saying I converted a Republican Party operative to the Democratic Party, but it is one of the greater of Rethug vulnerabilities, and we ought to be talking about it at church, around the "water cooler" (do they even exist any more?), and bringing clarity to that pro-Bush blind spot that exists in so many of our acquaintance.