Frickin' Will Rogers was spot on...

He's the guy who made the "I don't belong to an organized party, I'm a Democrat" crack, right?

As a former Deaniac, my single biggest frustration with the Dems is this, they have no problem dipping into the Repub barrel of dirty tricks, nasty tactics, and negative campaigning...when they're attacking a fellow Democrat. Of course, by the time the general election rolls around they tiptoe around the Repub opponent like an abused child who thinks if they don't make a sound as they come in the house they won't get slapped this time.

If the California governor's primary wasn't enough evidence, next week we're having our own primary in Virginia, two candidates who would mark an improvement over the (everybody say it w/me!) vacuous dimbulb George Allen, who (oh, Sweet Lord, NO!) might be our president in 2008. I had mildly endorsed James Webb over Harris Miller in purely pragmatic terms: as a former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, I thought he had bipartisan and military credentials that would play into the state as a whole more successfully and bloody Allen. But over the past few weeks, our home has been inundated with robocalls and nasty mailers from Miller festooned with the quotes of Allen 10-15 years ago when he was a Republican. This campaign tactic was enough to make me heartily endorse Webb though I admittedly knew very little, on the basis that zero was much higher than the negative integer I'd apply to Miller.

Well, I just got my first mailer from the Webb campaign, and it's a glossy three-pager, the first two detailing Webb's background and history as a Virginian. So far, so good. But the last page. Sigh, "The Truth About Harris Miller", and that just shut me down, don't care if it's true.

Webb had a chance to take the high road and he blew it with me, for whatever that's worth. Enough people I respect have told me personally that Webb's the real deal so that he couldn't have lost my vote, but my endorsement has gone back to mild. My hope now is that Webb hasn't been a Democrat long enough to learn to go into the fetal position by the time the general campaign starts.


UPDATE: Miller and Webb are going to debate on Hardball tonight; I don't have cable so I'll miss it, but anyone who checks it out I'd love to hear their impressions.