Note to Noel at Fighting Dems website, to be a Diary on Daily Kos - Draft:

Noel - The Fighting Dems has a future, I believe which will begin to hatch with the "new Democrats" growing in the new Congress. We see now since the November election the rise of red state Democrats. I see the life force rising in Virginia with Jim Webb. It was announced this morning that Wes Clark will publish a book called America's Son in Fall, 2007. I am all but certain that he will run in '08 and I plan to help him in any way I can. Wes is an Ameican for all seasons, and as a Presidential candidate will appeal to red states and right now that heart is beating in Virginia. I go to the Raising Kaine web site every morning as it has a life force akin to WesPAC's. The Mark Warner campaign and the Jim Webb campaign are both connected. Steve Jarding, who with Dave Mudcat" Saunders wrote the book, Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the Henhouse and what the Democrats Need to do to Run 'Em Out ran both of those campaigns. Jarding is supporting Wes now I believe. The Fighting Dems can be a conduit between these events just past and the future.

We face chaos in Democratic politics directly ahead, brought to you by the Senator from NY (when her egotism crashes in '07 and the Clintons resolve in blame and acrimony, Eric Massa might run for her Senate seat). Mike Bloomberg, mayor of NY, senses that if she runs it will mark a descent into mayhem and irresponsibility on behalf of the Democrats and he will put up a half billion of his own money to start a third Independent Party.

An article this month in New York Magazine reports that Bloomberg is serious about running. But he asks, "“What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who’s divorced really have of becoming President?”

Every chance, as his imagination is as vast as his cash flow.

It is the same impulse of "irrational exuberance" which calls forth Senator Clinton who was misguided from the beginning on Iraq and remains so, and Obama, who says he hopes no one votes for him just because he's black (would it be the legislative record then?) that sent this same generation to invest in undercapitalized DOT.com stocks in the salad days of the Clinton Administration. Silicon Valley was sure to be the Yuppie nirvana before the crash.

Nature calls Bloomberg forth, and he is a right honorable and competent American, even a patriot to put up his own cash to do this. But a third party will bring disaster to our country. If a competent guy like Bloomberg runs it will divide the votes in '08 into three thirds and the election will be thrown into the House. As the House is controlled by Democrats as per the November election, the House will give it to Hillary (Bloomberg has no support in the House). With Hillary as President with only 33% of the vote, the red states will buck. Red state alienation is caused to some large degree by northern yuppie pretensions.

“The Democrats must get off this cultural high ground they have been living on for the past twenty-five years,” write Jarding and Saunders in Foxes . . . . “When you want to represent people, you have to talk to them where they live. Talk to them about what they like to do for fun, what makes life enjoyable for them, what their fears are. And when you find out that they like NASCAR races, that they like country or bluegrass music, that they like to hunt or fish, don’t pass judgment on them. Embrace them.”

The South will not tolerate governance by a Clinton with only 33% of the vote (or a Clinton again with any percentage of the vote). Richard Viguerie of the Christian Coalition and Michael Hill of The League of the South will call for a Constitutional Convention – Robert Novak has already reported rumors of a Constitutional Convention. And if the South and the mid states wanted to secede today, who would stop them? Howard Dean?

We are at the beginning of a historical turning and the Fighting Dems, which started with Wes Clark's strong support, initiates a new direction in American politics marked by duty and responsibly. Those of us who went to war in Asia might have learned the phrase dharma; those of us with Virginia kin were weaned on it. ("Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less." -Robert E. Lee. This is Dharma.)

Dharma awakens today in Virginia where in a poll this week featuring the three Virginia frontrunners, Wes Clark, John Edwards and Barack Obama, General Clark received 62% (Edwards, 29%). In an earlier poll featuring ten potentials Clark was the leader with 37%. Edwards was next with 27%. Senator Clinton received 1.7%.

Now that Rumsfeld is out, Gates in and the Baker Panel's commission in the hands of the thoughtful, we can begin to look forward. Wes Clark is awakening in the heartland and awakening begins in Virginia.