Dear Democrats: Lead or get out of the way

For the first time in quite some time, Americans prefer Democrats over Republicans.

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows 51 percent of Americans prefer the direction Democrats want to take the country, compared with 35 percent for the Republicans.

This follows on the heels of bad poll numbers for Republicans across the board, with a host of scandals hanging over their heads, from Jack Abramoff to Katrina to Iraq to wiretapping Americans without warrants.

Then look at the issues. Republicans are on the losing end of almost all the biggies: health care, Iraq, education, Medicare, Social Security, the deficit, you name it.

This news should have Democratic leaders jumping for joy. But they are too busy jumping on each other and making fools of themselves, showing why they have been so dismal for so long.

When will they realize that they have to show leadership if they want to lead America?

Too many of the current crop of high-profile Democrats have the unique skill of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Ever since Bill Clinton, they have this idea that they have to be more Republican than the Republicans to win elections. They abandoned the folks out there who don't get huge tax breaks, who don't live off trust funds, people who work hard for a living and still can't afford health care, or get a decent education for their kids.

The citizens wonder why their tax dollars go to subsidize companies that are raking in record profits. They question how the country can keep piling up debt with no end in sight, while friends of the powerful loot the national treasury. After seeing this lunacy go on year after year, many of them just drop out and stop voting.

A two-party system doesn't work if one party doesn't show up.

So here is a message for the current and up-and-coming Democrats: Grow a spine. Stand up for something. Stop abandoning your principles for quick political gain. Start leading. Stop being afraid the Republicans are going to call you names.

Every once in a while we see the occasional bright spot, like Harry Reid shutting down the Senate to get Republicans to keep their promise to investigate the failures of pre-war intelligence that led to our invasion of Iraq. At the very least, we owe it to the 2,200-plus Americans who died there to tell them what happened to those reports of weapons of mass destruction.

But then along comes Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court and the Democrats turn into the Keystone Kops again. We were looking for some leadership on this issue, and what we got was Ted Kennedy throwing a last-minute filibuster party and no one showed up. That gave the Republicans a good laugh.

The race in 2006 will be about which party can rediscover its principles first. Republicans seem to have abandoned most of theirs, shunning the small-government and "compassionate" conservatism that brought them to power in return for opening up the government money pipeline to their cronies.

President Bush's newly released budget is so fraudulent on its face that it makes his Enron buddies look honest. How he can claim he is on track for cutting the deficit in half without accounting for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is just outright deceitful. If God really did strike down liars with bolts of lightning, the White House would be sucking enough power from the sky to solve the entire country's energy needs. At least that would follow through on one of their promises.

The president gets away with this because he is leading. People will accept bad leadership over none at all. And until Democrats learn that, they will never regain power.

The Republicans like to stand up for their grand principals and then do pretty much the opposite. Which is better than the Democrats, who seem to still be in search of some grand principles to stand up for, their fingers constantly in the wind waiting for some opportunity to blow their way.

That opportunity is here. Democratic leaders, start leading. Now. America agrees with your issues, if you will just step up and lead. There's a whole country depending on you. American soldiers are dying in Iraq because of a lack of sensible foreign policy. People are dying here because of a lack of sensible health care policy. Young minds are dying in schools because of a lack of sensible education policy. The hopes and dreams of future generations are dying because of a lack of sensible fiscal policy.

And if you can't put down the failed politics of the past, then quit. Go get yourself some cushy private-sector job and let others take the reigns of the party who actually want to take us somewhere.

Either lead now, or get out of the way.

n Kirk Caraway is Internet editor of the Nevada Appeal.