Do you think that's been a consistent problem -- the Democrats not willing to criticize hard enough?

Well, there's the stellar example of John Edwards sitting there at his debate with Dick Cheney and not landing a glove on him! Instead Edwards is going off into this fulsome aria about how much the vice-president loves his gay daughter. What a chickenshit! I mean, Dick Cheney is one of the most devious and Machiavellian individuals in American politics in my entire lifetime. He's the one who pushed Bush into this terrible, no-exit war. And Edwards is tippy-toeing around him? What is it that the Democratic strategists fear? That Cheney has a huge popular base? He's a shadow figure -- the original Mr. Sneak. Attack him! But it's too late now.

And yet the debates did seem to shift momentum toward the Democrats. What did you think of Kerry then?

I was very pleased with Kerry's performance because the image he had on the radio talk shows was a joke: he's a flip-flopper; he's wishy-washy; he's a weak-kneed Massachusetts liberal; he has a French haircut and is a gigolo who marries money -- on and on for months. And then in that first debate, which I thought was his best, Kerry just stood there in a very poised, dignified manner and seemed absolutely like a man who could be commander in chief. And interestingly, we watched Bush fall to pieces -- he seemed to spin off into some weird psychic maelstrom.

He was much more at ease in 2000.

The pressure of the war on Bush has been enormous -- all those deaths, which he has to steel himself not to feel. I actually thought he was having a nervous breakdown this spring, when he would get morose and teary-eyed in front of the cameras. I think the turning point for him was Reagan's death -- that whole massive ceremonial event, a national rite of passage that he had to preside over. It allowed him to become presidential again. It gave him the sense of a conservative legacy beyond his own father.

This is someone who, as a former alcoholic, can't have a drink. But the leader of the world's one remaining superpower should be able to have a nice glass of Pinot Noir at dinner -- especially when he's running a war! Relaxation gives perspective. The pressure of the presidency is crippling. Bush is a person who became born-again midway through his life. He's a new personality trying to live the right way -- but he's dragged the nation into his private drama. The consequence of his exhausting push for day-by-day certitude is a brittle tightness and puritanical inflexibility.

But if Bush wins this election, he did it on his own. Ever since the Republican Convention, he's been on fire, with a dynamic energy that makes him look like the underdog. He's cast off his paternalistic mentors and has come into his own as president. Going out to rallies really energizes him. And the crowds, who adore him, have truly made a turnaround, because for a while, the Republican base was a bit apathetic.

What energized the base?

The real turnaround may have been the Michael Moore movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- which opened in the U.S. with a French imprimatur (the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival). People keep carrying on about how wonderful that alleged documentary is, how it will bring young people in droves to the polling booth. Well, we'll see. If that movie, with all its fictions and distortions, really does put Kerry over, then we Democrats will all owe Michael Moore a debt, and I'll revise my low opinion of him.

But for Moore to turn a sitting president of the United States into a joke, and to use his position abroad to foment anti-Americanism, has had a huge backlash: the massive, indulgent publicity about the Moore film was when the Republican passion for Bush really began -- the passion to defend him, fed by a longstanding scorn for the liberal major media and for Hollywood. That's when everything seemed to gel for Bush, who had alienated conservatives with his big spending and slack immigration policy.

On talk-show call-ins, I started to hear real love for Bush, a protective desire to defend him against the smug liberal hyenas. It was a pivotal moment in the campaign. And the righteous fury of the Bush crusaders started to sway the undecideds. For months on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or other conservative radio shows, I really didn't hear such great enthusiasm for Bush. But then all of a sudden, there was a turning point. I remember sitting in my car in April listening to Hannity -- who has become a major force in American politics and whose talents as a broadcaster just keep getting better and better (though I'm always wishing he had more respect for other cultures and a broader understanding of our place in the world). He was talking slowly and thoughtfully after hanging up with a like-minded caller, and I got really alarmed. I said to myself, wow, here it is. It was a whole, comprehensive geopolitical picture: the only way we can win the war against terror is to take the fight to the terrorists abroad, America must be a beacon to the world. America has a divine mission to bring liberty to the world. It was a view of destiny that had a staggering clarity and simplicity.

Now if the Democratic consultants had any brains, they would have viewed all this as an important system of ideas that needed to be logically addressed, instead of just sneering at it. This is a war of ideas! But too many Democrats rely on a juvenile Al Franken level of discourse -- sneer, sneer, sneer at the benighted ones. We are all so superior in our little elite enclaves. So even if Kerry wins the election, the Democrats have lost this war of ideas.

It's as if we have no eloquent speechwriters any longer. The Democratic Party has become a p.c. wallow over the past 20 years -- a sinkhole of unctuous, bleeding-heart liberalism and emotional manipulation, always using seniors or "disenfranchised" African-Americans as convenient straw men. We're supposed to be in a constant state of empathy, on high alert to a cosmos of injustice. And always there are the aggrieved -- and those nasty people in high places who are doing awful things to them! It's become a tedious soap opera removed from reality.

The Democratic operatives, chummily clustered in their Northeastern drinking holes, are missing the fact that most Republicans are not the top execs of Halliburton but hardworking small-business people who lead orderly lives and try to be good citizens. There's been a slow shift: What used to be the Democratic base -- plain, unpretentious people going about their business and just trying to do the right thing -- is shifting toward the Republican Party. Republicanism is becoming populist. Republicans believe that tax cuts to large and small businesses help growth, encourage spending and investment, and create jobs. The Democrats have no answer to that except hysterical rhetoric. Rush Limbaugh rightly calls it the tired old "Democratic playbook" -- more than 25 years old.

But we're living in a new era -- it's post-9/11. The world will never be the same again. The Democrats have got to get out of their preoccupation with grandstanding, divisive, self-interested domestic issues and come up with idealistic rhetoric that could inspire and draw people. Why aren't they saying: This isn't America -- to keep people under lock and key in Guanténamo Bay without legal representation. Nor are the staged humiliations of Abu Ghraib or the police sweeps of Muslim citizens and their detention without indictment, contrary to our Bill of Rights. America should not endorse unilateral warfare -- since that will simply empower every thug and brigand to wage war on his neighbors. America must embrace international law -- which embodies the highest ideals of humanity. The U.N. may be imperfect, but it's the best forum we have for international dialogue. The Democrats have lost the ability to appeal and to inspire.

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