Dear George,

I think our honored Senator is missing the point. There is strength in numbers and it's harder to present a unified front if we fight over who's going to be captain by throwing spitballs.

What's clear is the distance inside the party between a candidate who inspires the voter versus a candidate who inspires the faith of the party inside The Beltway.

Dr. Dean is an outside the Beltway candidate and will be viewed as big threat by those inside the Beltway - including Mr. Bush - it will be harder to defend against him because he was not co-opted by the Bush Congressional Squeeze of 2002 when Mr. Bush encouraged all liberals to hide in the closet and not oppose his ridiculous behavior just before an election.

Mr. Bush will he a hard candidate to defeat for any Congressman or Senator who has gone along with his foreign policies for fear of offending voters. He represents the one thing Mr. Bush has no defense against- someone who has not already rubber stamped the Bush Presidency.

Mr. Lieberman is learned and informed and is missing the point by aiming at Dr. Dean - vitriol should be reserved in opposition of Mr. Bush and not in admiration for his nasty tactics. If you play like Hitler, you act like Hitler.As Democrats we need a Kennedy, not a compromiser. It's the only thing that will galvinize interest and momentum.

It's all show biz. Mr. Bush is Born-Again Christian who relies on blatant patriotic appeals - someone must put Mr. Bush on the defensive with an unceasing assault on his lies. Any energy directed toward any other opponent is not well spent.

I'll conclude with an anecdote offered by a client I recently gave an acting coaching to. He was an undercover policeman who pursued acting as a hooby. He described a scene from his New York Police Academy days to me:

"....so we were throwing each other on the mat as an exercise. This one guy got thrown on the mat really hard. He got up and reminded his partner that they were not supposed to throw them down especially hard. On the next round he was thrown down harder. He repeated his caution and was repeatedly thrown down harder and harder each time. He finally left. I mean, what kind of a cop was he going to be if he didn't swing back when someone hit him?"

The above attitude typifies an American business attitude that can only escalate tension - soldiers need not defend themselves from friendly fire, nor should policeman threaten one another with assaults, nor should members of the same party attempt to win victory by beating on one another.

Dr. Dean's advantage is that he can offer a full throttle distance from the politics of Mr.Bush - unfortunately, all of his rivals have been co-opted by the politics of a volatile wartime, flag-waving Presidency.

More in '04,

Joe Clancy (electronic mail, December 31, 2003)