What if Kelo is bigger than Roe?

In 1964 Barry Goldwater held a hard line against communist expansion and a relatively hard line against domestic expansion of the federal government. He got trounced in the 1964 Presidential election. In the subsequent ten Presidential elections, the Republicans won seven (arguably stealing one or two), and the three they lost could be attributed almost entirely to its own dysfunction and internal rebellions. Goldwater's defeat actually created an image for the party that was never really even close to accurate but which persisted: Tough, principled, pro-freedom.

In 2004 the Democratic Party missed a golden opportunity. It could have sent the volatile Howard Dean into landslide defeat - and with that defeat create the image of the Democrats for decades to come. Instead, it came out even worse: it nominated a pro-war Senator whose fingerprints are all over the absolute worst the Bush Administration had to offer, from the Patriot Act to No Child Left Behind. No matter how bad the President did, the Democrats matched him.

Scandals may yet do the President in. I sure hope so. But that will only possibly lead to one Democrat victory, in 2008. In 2008 the Democrats absolutely must not nominate a Senator. Not Hillary, not Feingold, not anyone. Not even for vice-President. The Senate Democrats are guilty, guilty, guilty. Guilty for imposing an internal passport on Americans. Guilty for fanatically upholding the right to abortion at the expense of EVERY OTHER LIBERTY WE HOLD DEAR.

A Democrat must come from outside Washington, untarnished from the disastrous Bush legislation that Congressional Democrats were all too willing to support, and campaign against the crackdown on civil liberties and basic property rights. The President isn't only contesting the White House, he's representing every State assembly candidate - every candidate of partisan office in the land. He's representing every apartment-dweller and middle-class homeowner in the nation. He must acknowledge that if anti-Roe judges are also pro-medical marijuana and pro-homeowner, that the Democrats have a problem. He can't dutifully cave to the pro-abortion fanatics who don't even have a principled Constitutional argument to back up their support for Roe.

Democrats must recognize the hypocrisies and contradictions in their positions, and move away from them to speak a plainer language to the American people. They can't continue to filibuster what they perceive to be "pro-life" judges who may also support personal liberty and private property when it comes to marijuana and eminent domain transfers.

The culture war got a whole lot bigger than it was just four weeks ago, and morally the "conservative judges" are clearly in the right. Democrats must recognize this and concede the point, if they want to provide a principled and coherent program to carry the country into the future.