In recent years the Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we're there to serve. We let our connection to our base atrophy and have forgotten, as they say in politics, who brought us to the dance. In service to a falsely named "centrism," we've sidestepped every major request from labor unions, especially on including worker protections in our free-trade agreements.

The Democrats, by using appeasement as a political strategy, have solidified the Republican hold on power. Harry Truman once said: "When the voters are given the choice between voting for a Republican or a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they'll vote for the Republican every time."

Our party made this come true in the 2002 midterm elections with dismaying results as, defying all expectations, the Republicans took control of the Senate, maintained their majority of governorships, and gained seats in the House. It was the first time in history that the Republicans had gained strength in the House in a midterm election while their party also held the White House.

In 2002, the Democrats misjudged the mood of the electorate. They thought they could get elected by playing it safe, moving to the middle, even by bragging that they'd voted with President Bush on most of his major legislative initiatives.

..."Democratic voters in 2002 didn't want to election Republicans; they wanted Democrats with deep-seated principles. One Democratic observer quoted by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr., put it well: "They seem to believe more in their ideas than we do in ours."

America's politicians attack one another by day and slap one another on the back by evening. They can play this game because they know their fighting words have no real meaning. And the media play right along, reporting on the game as though it were a story of substance. Indeed the game becomes the story, and discussions of substance are relegated to the newspapers' inside pages if indeed they are covered at all."