New Hampshire Hurts the Democrats Yet Again

Why does the State of New Hampshire hate Democrats?

Yes, I know the state has a Democratic governor, both of its U.S. House of Representatives districts sent Democrats to Congress in 2006, and John Kerry carried the state in 2004.

But New Hampshire is like the guy you will hang out with sometimes, but you know that if the chips are down, he will be on the first bus to Not-My-Problemsville. It all began in 2000, when New Hampshire was the only Northeast state to vote for George W. Bush. Yes, it was only four electoral votes, but had those four votes gone to Vice President Al Gore, the whole Florida scandal would have been irrelevant, since Gore would have won by a 270-267 margin.

There would have been no Iraq war, no John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court, and no Alberto "I Do Not Recall" Gonzalez in the Justice Department. New Orleans may have been properly taken care of in the critical days after Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. may very well have kept the pressure on Al-Qeada and the Taliban in Afghanistan. We may have even gotten Osama bin Laden when he was pinned down at Tora Bora. We also wouldn't have had secret energy policy summits with Enron, unauthorized warrantless wiretaps, and human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. And, most importantly, the U.S. wouldn't be a country that tortures people. But I digress.

No, New Hampshire gave its four measly votes to Bush, and the 2000s took a very dark turn.

Again, you might say, "New Hampshire has changed! Look at 2004! Look at 2006!" But again, it's easy to be a friend when there isn't much at stake. Yesterday, in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, nothing short of the future of the U.S. was on the line. And where was New Hampshire? Where it always is, running as far away as possible from helping the Democrats.

Okay, admittedly, I have taken this whole "New Hampshire hates the Democrats" game way too far, but it seems quite likely that the results in yesterday's primaries in New Hampshire (victories for Hillary Clinton and John McCain) were a crushing blow to anyone that would like to see a Democrat sworn into office in January 2009.

There were two things Democrats should have been rooting for in yesterday's election: Losses for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Why? Because in my humble opinion (backed up by poll numbers and history), of the eight candidates with a somewhat realistic chance of getting their parties' nominations going into the New Hampshire primary (Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards on the Democratic side, and McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson on the GOP side), McCain is the most electable, and Clinton is the second least electable (ahead of only Huckabee).

To be clear, I am not addressing the merits of any of the candidates, and I have written twice, on July 31, 2007 and November 27, 2007, about my belief that while I admire Hillary Clinton, I think she is not electable.

As I wrote in both articles, Clinton has two major problems winning in the general election. First, she is a divisive candidate with high disapproval ratings and painfully few voters who are undecided about her. Simply put, there is a huge pool of independents and Republicans who will never, ever, ever vote for Hillary Clinton. I'm not saying it's fair, I'm only saying it's true. Second, since 1964, no U.S. senator has been elected president, and no Democrat from a blue state has won, either. Clinton is both. (If McCain gets the nomination, it eliminates the senator issue, since both candidates would hold that office, but McCain is from a red state.)

The conventional thinking before New Hampshire was that if Obama won as polls indicated he would, it would be very difficult for the African-American voters in South Carolina (who make up about half of the Democrats in that state) to support Clinton, for fear of standing in the way of the historic rise of the first black major party candidate (and, possibly, the first black president). A win for Obama in South Carolina would have put Clinton's campaign on life support.

On the McCain side, of all of the Republicans, he seems to be the most dangerous opponent in the general election. He is perceived to be both moderate and a straight-talker, which makes him popular with independents. McCain's problem has been getting conservatives to vote for him, which led to his demise in 2000 in South Carolina and beyond after his big win in New Hampshire. This year, though, there is no George W. Bush waiting to pick off McCain. Huckabee and Thompson, the two candidates who can run on a conservative record, have baggage of their own.

The universal thinking in the political world, and one nearly admitted to by McCain himself, was that if he lost in New Hampshire, a place tailor-made for his independent nature, he was done. He would have lacked any momentum in the moderate (Michigan) and bible-thumping (South Carolina) states to come.

But armed with momentum from New Hampshire, McCain could find himself on the way to the nomination. And if he gets into a general election, his one weakness, conservative voters, becomes far less of a burden, since he is, for most of them, the lesser of two evils when paired with the Democratic nominee, especially if the opponent is Clinton. Clearly, McCain's failure to get religious conservatives excited pales in comparison to the electability problems of a position-shifting Romney or a to-the-right-of-everyone Huckabee. And Giuliani (his personal life, his mixed record, etc.) and Thompson (his perceived indifference and insider D.C. record) bring their own problems to the table, making them less formidable challengers than McCain.

So, if Clinton is unelectable and McCain is the most dangerous GOP candidate in November, New Hampshire provided the Democrats with a nightmare result yesterday.

Polls are so unreliable (if they were, Obama would still be shaking victory confetti out of his clothes today) and so dry, I've saved the poll data to the end. I believe the numbers, while not absolute, make a compelling argument that a Clinton-McCain match-up is the worst possible scenario for the Democrats.

In November, when McCain's campaign had emerged from the depths but had not yet caught fire, the Arizona senator still had the best numbers in head-to-head match-ups with the Democrats. As I cited in my November 27 article, a November 26 Zogby poll had McCain ahead of Clinton 42% to 38%, while trailing Obama 45% to 38%.

Those numbers have only gotten worse for the Clinton. In December, Rasmussen has McCain ahead of Clinton 49% to 43% (December 19-20), Fox News has McCain up 47% to 42% (December 18-19), Zogby has McCain winning 49% to 42% (December 12-14) and CNN has Clinton trailing 50% to 48% (December 6-9). If you like troubling trends, consider that Clinton's best result was in the oldest poll, and her second best result was from a survey done by, of all entities, Fox News.

Meanwhile, Obama does markedly better against McCain, beating him in the Zogby poll (47% to 43%) and tying him in CNN's survey (48% to 48%), with only Fox News having McCain on top (44% to 40%).

(The December polls involving head-to-head match-ups between all the top Democrats and Republicans are compiled in a handy RealClear Politics chart here.)

In general, Obama does better than Clinton against all of the GOP candidates, winning all the polls cited by RealClear against Rudy Giuliani (six by an average of 7.3%), Huckabee (five by an average of 10.4%), Romney (five by an average of 12.2%) and Thompson (three by an average of 12%). In fact, other than the Fox News poll against McCain, Obama wins every poll cited against every Republican candidate (with one tie against McCain).

Meanwhile, Clinton loses in at least one poll against every candidate except for Thompson (who she beats four times with an average margin of 7.2%, lower than Obama's 12% average). In addition to losing in all four surveys to McCain, she falls to Giuliani in two of the six polls, and drops one poll each to Romney and Huckabee. By comparison, where Obama beats Romney and Huckabee by an average of 12.2% and 10.4%, respectively, Clinton can only manage average victories of 4.8% against both of those weaker candidates.

For those in the Edwards camp who still believe their man has a chance at the nomination, he wins two out of three polls with McCain, wins one out of three against Giuliani (with one tie), and wins every other poll against the other top Republicans.

Again, poll numbers are not the be-all, end-all of figuring out what will happen. But when you throw in Clinton's historical problem with high unfavorability ratings and Obama's demonstrated ability in Iowa and New Hampshire (not incidentally, two swing states Democrats would need to win in 2008) to attract independents, it sure does appear that Obama would be a stronger challenger to the GOP in November.

Of course, Clinton could beat any of the Republican contenders head-to-head, and, on the flip side, Obama could lose to any of them. Nobody can claim to be sure what will happen 10 months from now. Obama is, after all, a blue state U.S. senator, just like Clinton. But Obama has built his campaign on the notion of reaching out beyond the confines of the labels of red state and blue state, conservative and liberal, which, theoretically, gives him a better chance of bucking the traditional aversion to Democratic blue staters that the U.S. electorate has shown in presidential elections.

Most of all, Democrats, after crushing defeats in 2000 and 2004 (especially after choosing an eminently unelectable candidate in 2004), should be looking to put the odds in their favor as much as possible. 2008 is not an election for hoping or experimenting. It is a contest in which the party should be looking at all the evidence, all the history, and all the odds, and entrusting the party's nomination to the candidate with the best chance of winning. As we sit here on January 9, 2008, one day after the New Hampshire primaries, it is virtually impossible to make a compelling argument that Hillary Clinton stands a better chance than Barack Obama of beating a Republican in November, especially if it's John McCain. Making the Clinton argument requires a lot of hoping that polls and history can be overcome. Making the Obama argument requires far less speculation.

And this whole debate would be far less important if New Hampshire voters had helped out the Democrats. Life would look much sunnier in Democratic homes right now if Mitt Romney was celebrating a win that could propel him to the nomination, and Barack Obama was steamrolling his way to November, as well. A Romney-Obama match-up would seem to break the Democrats' way (a straight shooter against a flip-flopper ... how well did that match-up work out for John Kerry in 2004?).

Instead, New Hampshire citizens have presented Democrats with a potentially unwinnable race: A war hero Republican who is viewed as maverick, independent, moderate, and straight-shooting against an establishment Democrat with a history of near-50% disapproval ratings and a reputation for taking positions based on poll results.

New Hampshire, what have we Democrats done to make you hate us so much? Wait, by asking that question, I'm afraid Rudy Giuliani will scold me like he did Ron Paul. Never mind.

“Law and Order” Survives Everything, Even a Writers Strike

[NOTE: The following article will also appear as my regular television column for WILDsound.]

A comic in the 1980s, I believe it was Bill Hicks, said that only two things would survive a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches and Keith Richards. (He went on to impersonate Keith describing his reaction to the mushroom cloud: “I saw a bright light. I thought we were on.”) I think the 21st Century version of that joke would substitute Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order” franchise for Keith Richards.

At the end of last season, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” was garnering solid ratings, but there was a question as to whether NBC would renew the other two members of the franchise, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and the granddaddy of them all, “Law & Order.” But in an 11th hour move, the network picked up both shows (although it shifted “CI” to its corporate sibling, USA Network, airing Thursdays at 10 p.m. Eastern). Not to mention that the three Wolf creations seem to be in an endless loop of reruns on basic cable stations. You would be hard-pressed to turn on your television at any time of the day and not find a “Law & Order” show on somewhere.

So it seems only fitting that nine weeks into the writers strike, with scripted shows being as rare as a Rudy Giuliani speech without a 9/11 reference, NBC rolled out three hours of new “Law & Order” programming with a new episode of “SVU” and the season premiere of “Law & Order.” Apparently, not even a work stoppage that has decimated the schedule can stop Wolf’s juggernaut.

“SVU” (NBC Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern) returned from its holiday break to continue its ninth season on Tuesday with an episode about the murder of a debutante that turns out to be the tip of a crime iceberg. Watching a first-run offering of a “Law & Order” program reminds you of why the reruns score consistently high ratings and people can’t seem to get enough of Wolf’s cops and lawyers. You know exactly what you’re getting. The shows follow a strict crime, apprehension, trial formula that is adhered to episode after episode. The focus is on the work, not the private lives of the characters. And you know there will be twists and turns until the truth is revealed. Oh, and of course, it’s good. There is something comforting about turning on a show and knowing what you will (and won’t) get.

And “SVU” continues to provide grist for the mill. Tuesday’s episode sucks you in with the discovery of a body (by a paintballer, a nice change from the overused walker/jogger), leads you down a road thinking that the show will be about which member of the debutante’s upper class world was responsible for her demise, only to take the story in a new direction when a homeless preteen is caught on security footage pawning the victim’s pricey earring. Next thing you know it, we’re following detectives Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) into the world of a homeless “family,” with a dictatorial father figure ruling with an iron fist over his teenage “wife” and brood of homeless teen “children,” who steal for him and do his dirty work. He’s like Fagin after doing a stretch in Oz with Schillinger and Said.

It seems like the only concession to the times “SVU” is willing to make is to amp up the action and violence a bit. For a show about sex crimes, the episodes are usually pretty clinical and talky. But on Tuesday, there was a fairly violent scrap between Stabler and the homeless “father,” and two guest characters are gruesomely murdered as the episode goes on. In the “SVU” world, the first victim is usually the only one.

But on the whole, “SVU” is what it has always been, a well-written, well-acted procedural with a smart edge to it. The cast especially plays smart and cynical well, with Richard Belzer’s Detective John Munch, Ice-T’s Detective Fin Tutola, Adam Beach’s Detective Chester Lake and Dann Florek’s Captain Donald Cragen keeping things moving.

I especially liked the interplay in Tuesday’s episode between Meloni and Hargitay as they make small talk while feasting on pizza and ice cream in an effort to coax a hungry, homeless teen into ratting out her compatriots. It’s the kind of moment that makes a Wolf show more than just a dramatized version of the transcript of a case covered on a Court TV real crime show.

While the cast of “SVU” has remained pretty stable over its run, the original “Law & Order” has been the ultimate example of form over personality. That’s not to say that beloved actors, especially the deliciously sarcastic Jerry Orbach, haven’t put their stamp on the series, but the show, as they say, goes on, no matter who stays and who goes. And when “Law & Order” (NBC Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern) launched its 18th season on Wednesday, the merry-go-round took a few more spins. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) has been promoted to fill the vacancy left by the departure of District Attorney Arthur Branch (Fred Thompson, who has traded the crime scenes of New York for the campaign stops of Iowa and New Hampshire), with Michael Cutter (Linus Roache) filling McCoy’s old spot as executive assistant district attorney and boss to the returning assistant district attorney Connie Rubirosa (Alana De La Garza). Also, Detective Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin) has a new partner, asked by his lieutenant, Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), to work with Detective Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), who has returned to New York after four years working abroad.

The episode centers around Lupo’s return to New York and his discovery that his brother has committed suicide, but as you would expect from a show whose format has always been more important than its cast, the other personnel changes are only mentioned in passing. We’re thrown into a meeting between Cutter and Rubirosa, with no explanation as to who Cutter is. Wolf knows we’ve been watching this show for 17 years, after all, so we can figure out that he is filling McCoy’s old role. Where many shows might take an entire episode to introduce a new character (think Jack and Janet getting a new roommate on “Three’s Company”), “Law & Order” can cover it in a line of dialogue.

Based on the season premiere, Sisto and Roache will fit nicely into the “Law & Order” universe. Sisto, who has made a career out of playing unhinged characters, both evil and stupid (the husband in “Waitress”) and smart and dangerous (the photographer in “Six Feet Under”), brings an intensity to Lupo that provides a nice contrast to good guy Green. And Roache’s Cutter has a prickly, steely facade that will offer a different vibe than McCoy’s elder statesman authority figure.

The season’s first episode showed why, after all these years, “Law & Order” can still attract an audience. From the investigation through the first trial (featuring a great turn by Michael McKean as a sleazy television journalist), the plot centers on the assisted suicide efforts of a Kevorkian-like doctor and his daughter, a nurse who has taken up his cause. Just when you are saying to yourself, “Seriously, assisted suicide in 2008? How outdated is this show?”, Wolf makes an unexpected and totally interesting turn into the issue of the pain suffered by prisoners executed by lethal injection. You never see it coming, but Wolf finds a way to use an old issue to make a point about a current one (the U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case as to whether the lethal injection cocktail used by most states is unconstitutionally cruel).

Wolf hasn’t been shy about the fact that he wants “Law & Order” to catch “Gunsmoke” as the longest running drama in television history. Considering that, after 17 years, “Law & Order” can replace two of its six lead cast members and still not miss a beat, I wouldn’t bet against him.

I’m not sure if the “Law & Order” franchise is Keith-like in its ability to survive a nuclear Armageddon, but it has proven its mettle in managing to sidestep the writers strike. With January scheduled to bring a cavalcade of new reality programming, that’s good enough for those of us with no interest in “The Biggest Loser,” “American Gladiators” and anything with Donald Trump (all NBC shows debuting new seasons between January 1 and January 6).

"Partisan" Is Not Necessarily a Dirty Word

1: a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance
- The first definition of "partisan" offered by Merriam-Webster

On the last day of 2007, the U.S. Senate held a 12-second session with exactly one member of the body present (Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed). No votes were taken, no speeches were made, and no lobbyist money was pressed into waiting palms (at least none that were visible to the media).

Considering that Congress's approval rating makes Barry Bonds look like Mr. Popular, I'm sure many Americans would think that nothing could be accomplished by the Senate in 12 seconds, since nothing much gets done when their representatives are there in full force. But those 12 seconds were vital, at least for anyone who thinks that the Bush administration has done a terrible job of appointing candidates to office (from "Brownie" botching the handling of Hurricane Katrina to Alberto Gonzalez disgracing the office of the Attorney General).

As we know, the one thing Bush hates most in the world (even more than anything that prevents prisons from executing people) is having anyone, even the U.S. Congress carrying out its constitutional duties, tell him what to do. He is the "decider," after all, and if people don't agree with him, well, they should keep it to themselves and stay out of his way. Otherwise, he'll paint them as not supporting the troops (if the issue is war-related) or partisan (on domestic questions) and try and power forward to get what he wants, no matter how few people in the country agree with him.

We can only guess how much Bush hates it that, with the Democrats controlling the Senate, he actually has to get someone's permission to appoint a candidate to office.

Of course, when Congress isn't in session, Bush has access to a loophole. During these breaks in the legislative calendar, he is constitutionally permitted to make "recess appointments" without getting approval from the Senate. It's a strategy he's used before, even when choosing a position as important as U.N. Ambassador.

Which leads us back to Reed's quickie Senate action, which is part of a series of such meetings designed to keep the Senate technically in session so Bush can't make any recess appointments. According to a CNN.com article, the person the Democrats most want to keep from office is Steven Bradbury, who Bush has nominated to be the permanent head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Why are the Democrats so against Mr. Bradbury's appointment? Well, it seems that while working for the Justice Department, he wrote two memorandums defending the use of torture. Bradbury, a former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, amusingly once testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush, when interpreting case law, is "always right." If you don't believe me, you can watch it here.

The tactic employed by the Senate Democrats to prevent the recess appointments will inevitably bring charges that they they are acting in a partisan way, with the implication being that such activity is a bad thing. Coincidentally, also on Monday, the New York Times ran a story claiming that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a man who has done time as a Democrat, Republican and independent, is closer to running for president. The article describes a meeting in Oklahoma this Sunday and Monday that will bring together "elder statesmen" Democrats and Republicans, such as former U.S. Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and David Boren (D-Okla.) and current Senator Chuck Hegel (R-Neb.), describing the agenda of the meeting as an effort "to renounce partisan gridlock." The speculation is that Bloomberg could team with Hegel or Nunn (or some other traditionally moderate politician) for a centrist, third-party run for the White House in November.

It seems to me there are two issues in play here that have somehow been intertwined together more than would be necessary or beneficial: centrism and partisanism.

On the one hand, there is the idea that a majority of Americans sit closer to the center of the political road than on either the left or right sides of the ideological spectrum. As such, some have argued (like the group gathering in Oklahoma) that it would make sense to promote a candidate that speaks to this group in the center, rather than forcing these moderates to cast their lots with liberals or conservatives with whom they don't always agree. I certainly have no problem with a centrist party. Many European countries have moderate parties that sit successfully between more traditionally liberal and conservative entities, and having a moderate party in the United States may not be a bad thing.

But I'm not sure how the idea of centrism got wrapped up with the idea of fighting against partisanship. At the risk of stating the obvious, isn't this group moving towards creating a third-party run for the White House, by definition, advocating that its ticket win the election? And in doing so, won't it have to distinguish itself from the Democrats and Republicans it is running against? It seems to me that the leaders of this campaign will be every bit "firm adherent(s) to a party, faction, cause, or person" (the first half of the Merriam-Webster definition of "partisan"), which, inevitably, will lead to the same "blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance" to the cause (the second half of the Merriam-Webster definition) in which they accuse the Democrats and Republicans of taking part; at least if the third party wants to win (if the Republicans "swift boated" John Kerry, I can only imagine and cringe at what they'd do to a divorced, wealthy, Jewish, New York Mayor with a history of going on vacations with his girlfriend).

And being a moderate doesn't mean that on individual issues, a candidate or voter takes a dispassionate, centrist position. Rather, to many Americans, being a moderate means holding some views that are traditionally seen as conservative and others that are historically more liberal. Bloomberg is a great example of this approach. He's pro-choice, but believes in fiscal conservatism. So if Bloomberg passionately defends the right to choose or the need for lower taxes, is he being partisan to his new party? After all, he's not taking a middle ground on those issues, right?

In fact, many issues are yes-or-no, black-or-white, with no real middle ground. What is a moderate position on abortion? If you believe the procedure is murder, nothing short of a ban will satisfy you. If you believe in a woman's right to control her own body, nothing short of full freedom to terminate a pregnancy will satisfy you. A position that tries to find ground in the middle will, in fact, just anger both sides.

Or, to look at a more pressing, immediate question, what is a moderate position on Bush's appointment of Bradbury to his Justice Department position? If you believe (as I do) that the Bush administration's embrace of torture has been one of the most horrifying, damaging and morally repugnant actions taken by an American president since the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, what middle ground can be found? And, more importantly, why would you want or need middle ground? My outrage over the U.S. employing torture techniques cannot be assuaged by some kind of middle position. In my heart, torture is wrong, and nothing short of a ban will satisfy me.

Which brings me back to my point on partisanship. In the world of sports, we have allegiances to teams that, beyond geography, are primarily irrational. I pull for the Yankees and despise the Mets, live and die with the Islanders and wish nothing but heartbreak for the Rangers, and support Arsenal and root for whoever is playing against Manchester United and Chelsea. But there is nothing inherent in the Yankees, the Islanders or Arsenal that I am supporting. You can certainly argue that, in these cases, I am demonstrating "blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance(s)."

But when it comes to politics and questions of who should govern and how they should govern, parties stand for ideologies. They are not just empty vessels like sports teams. A small section of the population, usually found to be in the mid-thirties, percentage-wise, still thinks Bush is doing a good job, while the rest of us do not. Is this a partisan question? A majority of Americans oppose torture, but Bush wants the U.S. Congress to officially endorse a torture advocate for an important position in the Justice Department. Is that partisan, too?

Standing up for a belief system is not "blind, prejudiced or unreasoning." It goes to fundamental questions about our society. When Republicans accuse Democrats of being "partisan" for supporting an issue, it's an empty charge. But if that's the way the Republicans want to play it, fine, I am happy to be partisan, because it means I'm standing up for my vision of what my country is and should be. By the Republicans' flawed logic, I would argue that Democrats need to be more partisan. The party needs to be stronger in standing up for traditionally Democratic ideals, not weaker.

When Republicans stand up for issues they care about, they aren't accused of being partisan. The Democrats accused of being partisan for keeping the Senate in session, but nobody says President Bush is partisan for appointing a candidate to a sensitive office who holds views contrary to a majority of the American people. When the Democrats pass a bill that Bush has promised to veto, like a war funding bill that contains timetables for troop withdrawals, Bush says they are being partisan, but nobody accuses Bush of being partisan for vetoing a bill that most Americans support. Clearly, the issue of the parties being too partisan is not a real one, but is just a tactic Republicans have used to advance their policies. I have no doubt any Republican reading the previous sentence will accuse me of being partisan, which is exactly the problem. It allows the question to be moved from the substance of the issues.

So nobody should be surprised to read that I thought the Democratic strategy of keeping the U.S. Senate in session over the holidays was brilliant. It prevented a president with a track record of making tragic and damaging decisions that have repeatedly weakened our country from making another one. That makes the Senate Democrats patriots, in my book, for finding some fortitude for a change and taking appropriate action to protect their country, no matter how they will be portrayed by the Republican propaganda machine.

The Democrats will be accused of being partisan. It may not be accurate, but it's fine with me. Better partisan than weak, and better partisan than allowing Bush to get what he wants at the expense of the reputation, security and health of the United States.

When introducing "Helter Skelter" on U2's "Rattle and Hum" album, Bono said, "Here's a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We're stealing it back." If standing up for traditional Democratic principles makes Democrats partisan, I'm here to steal back the word for the party. If it means keeping people like Bradbury out of office, I'm happy to do it.