George,

Al Weed is the better candidate. This election will only be won by pounding the pavement and getting out the vote. Al is the type of progressive leader who can whip up a storm of progressive activists to get out the vote, Bern is not. The voters in the "middle" whom Bern is apparently attempting to court are not ideological -- so his pandering will do him no good. There may be a few ideological centrists that Bern will pick up, but he'll lose it 3 times over when his activist base doesn't care enough about him to get out the vote.

Virgil also beat Bush by 7-8%, meaning there is a strong incumbency factor at work here. The only way to get around the incumbency factor (besides an indictment) is to present a clear alternative, something Bern is utterly terrified to do. Without giving the middle voters any reason to break from their support of Virgil, and without giving the activist base any reason to get excited, Bern's campaign will be dead in the water. He may lose by a few points less than Al and others have in the past, but he'll still lose big because he refuses to nationalize the race and capitalize on the surge of Democratic energy sweeping the country.

Al may lose as bad as he did last time, but there is at least a chance that the election gets framed around national issues, the blogosphere starts to pay attention to the challenger to Virgil "MZM-Scandal" Goode (there's no way the blogosphere will ever support Bern Ewert), Al gets a boost from outside the district, gets a ton of volunteers within the district, and seizes the "perfect storm" opportunity to replace Virgil with a real Progressive. There is no "Perfect Storm" scenario for Bern, just the same old losing strategy with a new face.

- Michael Snook (electronic mail, March 25, 2006)