If Democrats aren’t providing voters with a great message, are they providing voters with something of substance? Good question. It usually helps your reelection chances if you can provide voters with accomplishments that make them want to vote for you again. What’s the Democratic majority’s track record when it comes to niceties that Congress has given voters? It’s not insubstantial, but not great.

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• Current Mood: Worn out
• Currently Listening To: "Let It Rain", Eric Clapton

A little more than nine years ago, when I was a columnist for the Minnesota Daily, I wrote a column expressing my opposition to a planned missile defense shield. In the wake of President Obama’s decision to cancel the planned defense shield in Eastern Europe, I went back and re-read that column, and what was true then is just as true today: a missile defense shield is useless, and Obama was right to cancel it.

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Yesterday Julia and I had the exciting pleasure of volunteering at President Obama’s first White House rally at the Target Center in Minneapolis to argue for health care reform. We we asked to volunteer on Wednesday shortly after the visit was announced, and we jumped at the chance. Following a training session on Friday night, where we learned that we would be volunteer captains for the VIP section on the floor of the Target Center close to the podium, the rally left us tired, sore, and fired up. Here are a few of our experiences at that rally…

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I’m having a hard time deciding if this is satire. Sadly, I don’t think it is.

I read today that former Republican Congressman, presidential candidate, and vice-presidential nominee Jack Kemp died today. Although I am certainly no Republican, I did respect him as a person. He was wrong about supply-side economics, but unlike many Republicans today he was genuinely concerned about the plight of the poor and sought to bring everybody in this country into the debate. Instead of marginalizing and attacking groups like immigrants, for example, he sought solutions to the issues surrounding immigration.

With the national Republican party in complete disarray these days, they would be well-advised to take a look at people like Jack Kemp.

Edit: I just found (via Balloon Juice) this letter from Jack Kemp to his grandchildren after the election of Barack Obama. Can you imagine any other Republican in power writing this kind of letter?