Thomas Paine produced a series of articles during the Revolutionary War that galvanized him into the publics' attention.  Such published works as 'Common Sense' hit at the core beliefs grounded within the cultural psych of American colonial people.  He articulated that elitist had no business dictated the affairs of common folks when they had little interest in common folks.  He argued that such self-serving ways were in their last days.

Such is the truth of elitists within the Democratic Party.  No longer does this party have a unified message, nor can it claim to be the party of Roosevelt, Jefferson or others.  There just in no connection between the disunited, self-serving messages, of most Democratic leaders or the leadership behind major supporting causes, and those Heroes of History who championed for the people.

These days we only witness the pessimism and self-serving interests of the extreme.  Shame!  With respect to the War on Terror we only hear from the Democratic Leadership and other groups of exit-strategy, exit-strategy, and exit-strategy.  Shame!  As a soldier and commissioned officer who recently separated from the service; as one with numerous peacekeeping, peace enforcing, humanitarian, and more recently Iraq War experience under my belt, I yell "Shame".  To even talk of exit strategies, which in today's political environment comes up before and operation even begins, facilitates our enemies will to fight us under an insurgency.  That is until American political opposition results in complete military withdrawal.  We should remain in Iraq for 50-years, if need be.  Similar to our 60-year stay in Germany, our physical presence is a demonstration of our culture, our democracy, and our values.  

There are no perfect democracies, Turkey for example, but I'd fight a hundred years throughout the Middle East to create a score of Turkey's, if not recreate a Greater Turkey.  

Paine had our attention when he addressed core cultural values, self-determination, democracy, capitalism, etc.; he lost our attention when he challenged our faith in god.  Any public favor Paine carried was lost when he challenge a cultural truth built within our collective society, resident not in all of us but in the majority; such will the results be if we, the Democratic Party, try to build a national, state, or local campaign in 2006 upon self-serving, counter-culture idealism, and upon platforms that show the world a fundamental weakness to sustain our values overseas and for the duration.

In short, we need candidates who will fight the far right of the Republican Party, fight the far left individualists, and meet in the middle those who exercise `Common Sense'.