The Vision Thing: In 1992, it was Bush's father who didn't have the "vision thing" mastered. Now here come the nine Dems for 2004. Pricesless quote on the first debate:

Ed Craig, a small businessman and former director of state Democrats in South Carolina, said he was "fairly disappointed" in the debate. He said the Democrats did not seem to learn a lesson from last November's election losses.

"They were arguing over the same themes that we heard then, and they did not resound that well," Craig said. "Where is the guy with a vision?

I didn't see the debate, of course. (I have a life.) But I can guess the themes. "George Bush wants to have an enormous tax cut to give money back to the rich! [Note: Have somebody from the DNC give the air conditioning system a good whack so that everybody shivers a little whenever we say "rich."] I don't see why we should cut taxes when we have a perfectly good rathole in Washington we can pour that money into. Again."