What the !@#$ is wrong with the democratic party!?

In this news story, Paul Hackett announces that the democratic party has betrayed him.

For those who don't know who Paul Hackett is:

Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War.

He was cheered by many as just the sort of person the democratic party, and the country, needs. So what did the democratic party leadership do?

...for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress. "This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.

"For me, this is a second betrayal," Mr. Hackett said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."

Mr. Hackett was the first Iraq war veteran to seek national office, and the decision to steer him away from the Senate race has surprised those who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.

WTF!?

The republican party is nothing more than a crime syndicate, and now, the democratic party has become some sort of bizarro-world exercise in discovering how many possible ways there are to lose political races. No wonder I am an independent.

The democrats have had such an amazing, phenomenal opportunity handed to them on a silver platter: their sole opposition is the republican party, who have not only become the most staggeringly corrupt organization in American political history, but who do not even have popular support anymore except among homophobes, xenophobes, religious wackos, plutocrats, theocrats, and white-collar criminals anticipating their pardons. How hard could it possibly be for a political party to demonstrate that it stands in opposition to the vile sewage that comprises the republican ideology? How hard could it be to emerge victorious, even if only philosophically, against such an opponent?

Apparently, too hard for the democratic party. Real progressives might as well abandon the rat-infested vessel which the democrats are steering up the welcoming ass of the republican party.

Now, if that's not enough, dig this: Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities:

...Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party... "We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about."

Democrats said they had not yet figured out how to counter the White House's long assault on their national security credentials. And they said their opportunities to break through to voters with a coherent message on domestic and foreign policy — should they settle on one — were restricted by the lack of an established, nationally known leader to carry their message this fall.

Like, say, oh, I dunno... Paul Hackett!?

As a result, some Democrats said, their party could lose its chance to do to Republicans this year what the Republicans did to them in 1994: make the midterm election, normally dominated by regional and local concerns, a national referendum on the party in power.

Democratic Party's problems seem particularly tangled today, a source of frustration to Democratic leaders as they have watched opinion polls indicating that the public is souring on the Republican Party and receptive to Democratic leadership... There is a surfeit of issues for Democrats to use against Republicans — including corruption, the war in Iraq, energy prices and health care... Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, said: "We have a strategy. First is to convince the American people that what's happening in Washington is not working. We have achieved that. Now we have to, at this stage, convince people that we are the ones to bring positive change."

Convince away, but do it quick. We grow impatient with this crap.