With 97% of the vote for governor in for my home state of Kentucky, Democratic candidate Steve Beshear was ahead 58.9% to 41.1% over incumbent Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher. That landslide margin of 17.8% had been pretty steady since the first weeks after the gubernatorial primaries in the spring.

IBeshear has a lot of faults in common with the national democratic leadership. He's about as colorless as a politician can get (I met him in Morehead, KY this spring), relatively conservative, and highly risk averse. Beshear's signature issue was putting the legalization of casino gambling on the ballot. He didn't even commit to casino gambling as a good idea. Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid have been potted plants ever since they caved on Iraq war funding last summer. Like Beshear, they're "there," they "work hard," they don't look particularly good or bad, and they don't do much on their own. Actually, that sounds like a lot of Democrats

Yet Beshear still won handily. I believe two things kept Beshear 17% ahead throughout the election campaign. There was the fact that the Republicans were somewhat divided as a result of Ann Northup's primary challenge to Fletcher. More important, opinion hardened against Fletcher early as evidenced by Fletcher's Bush-like approval ratings. Partisan Democrats grew more committed to replacing Fletcher, weak Democrats decided to vote their party, and swing voters swung to Beshear without thinking too much about Beshear himself. It was an election that a potted Democrat could win and Beshear was the right plant at the right time.

The question for the 2008 presidential election is whether a potted Democrat will be able to win the presidency as well. The lesson of Kentucky is that there is going to be a hard core anti-Republican vote among weak Democrats and Independents. A potted plant Democrat might not be able to win against somebody as tough and smart as Giuliani, but it might not take much more than a potted plant either.

if Giuliani is the GOP nominee. While you call him "tough and smart", I'd call him arrogant and abrasive. Unless Hillary or whoever really fouls up, I think it's a stretch that most Americans would vote for a bloody mayor in the first place--and one with Caligula-esque qualities to boot.

Facts in evidence of that proposition seem notable for their absence. Got any I may have missed that you'd care to share? Cuz I just ain't seein' it.

I thought the arrogance, abrasiveness, and lying would blow up in his face by now. Perhaps it won't blow up in his face at all.

I'll mention three things. Giuliani's criticisms of Hillary Clinton are well-formulated, his aggressiveness and abrasiveness is smartly calculated to appeal to GOP ideas of masculinity, and his lying is designed to show that he won't kowtow to the "liberal media." I don't think Rudy's candidacy will work in the end, but he is doing much better than most people thought he would.

Bush admin's lies about Saddam's WMD and al Qaeda alliance, or swiftboat liars' lies about Kerry, were "well-formulated", right (i.e., they achieved their intended outcome, despite being lies)?

Then we have "aggressiveness and abrasiveness smartly [purportedly, per ric] calculated to appeal to GOP ideas of masculinity"; lying (with the implication that truth-telling is the means of 'kowtowing to the "liberal media"'!!! interesting) and "doing much better than most people thought he would" (now there's a high bar for "smart"; wasn't that the same one that enabled Bush to" exceed expectations"?).

So. I see the word "smartly" in there, but I remain skeptical that any facts in evidence of the proposition have been presented.

Even giving Giuliani (and your thesis) maximum benefit of the doubt, can it ever actually be "smart" to achieve your ambition of power via rank deception? Isn't this just setting yourself up as Bush II (III?), the sequel? Can it in any meaningful sense be "smart" to duplicate Bush's trajectory (or attempt to)?

If "smart" means batshit insane, then I suppose so.

That - in a nutshell - is the dynamic functional difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats desire (beyond all reckoning) to be right. Republicans simply want to win. Something. Anything.

Winning is easy. Cheat. Being right? Not so easy.