[angkor]

Several interesting points here:

(a) The Rats have learned to run on "tactics and mechanics" rather than principles and beliefs. Why? Because their principles have moved further and further into the sewer of gay rights, anti-Americanism, socialism, racebaiting, and general immorality. In truth, the Rats can count only on electioneering mechanics (get out the vote, absentee ballots, court battles) to get their way. They no longer inspire the American people. How could they?

(b) Maryland elected Michael S. Steele - a black Republican - as lieutenant governor. This will hopefully get Maryland blacks to begin rethinking their lockstep association with the Rat party. Acquaintances who've met Steele say that he's a good man and right for the role of Lt. Gov. Surely the black community must be realizing that Republicans don't choose "token blacks" for leadership roles, and that there is room for all people in the Republican party.

(c) I don't agree with the article premise that the Clintons have been upbraided by this election. McAuliffe, Daschle, and Gephardt are soon to be gone, and the Clintons will be moving in with their selected lackeys to take complete control of the Rat party (McAuliffe will discarded, just like Reno and Cuomo). Just look at DU, everyone there is blaming the Rat "establishment" but it is not the Clintons they are blaming (in fact many calls for Hitlery to take a leadership role).

[Conservative_Rob]

I think that it is worth noting that the headquarters of the NAACP is in Baltimore. Michael Steele would be a great conduit to bring the established black leadership out of the darkness and into the light.

[Eva]

You are right. The Democrats are blaming Gephardt and McCauliffe. They forget that McCauliffe was Clinton's hand picked lackey.

They blame Gephardt for not being far enough left and attacking Bush on the war with Iraq and McCauliffe for not leading the party in the direction of the extreme left. I heard lefty after lefty on tv, yesterday, saying that the Democrats needed stronger leadership and that the only person who could provide that leadership was Clinton.

The Democrats still don't get it. They don't see Clinton's typhoid Mary effect on the election, they don't see that the Wellstone memorial/rally was offensive and they don't see that the tide of voter apathy towards the Democrat party began with Bonior's and McDermott's trip to Iraq.

[beckett]

McAuliffe will be discarded, just like Reno and Cuomo

You make a bunch of sound points in your post, but the problem with McAuliffe being "discarded, just like Reno and Cuomo" is that McAuliffe is a money man and as such knows the real Clintons in ways that Reno and Cuomo never did. It may be a rather sticky wicket for the Clintons to discard him. The shared lack of principles that define McAuliffe and Clinton is a strong binding force, and if one goes down, the other may ineluctably follow.

[Bernard]

They better spend a LOT of time telling Maryland blacks that this person is a Republican. Over the past three years, I have told several relatively well-educated black employees that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and they just don't believe me.