What's different about this election is that emotion and perception are leaning in a positive direction, after years of negativity and fearmongering. Americans don't like to be made to feel afraid, and insecure and weak, and that tactic has always had a limited shelf life. The American spirit wants to come back, and to some degree we're projecting on to all the candidates that renewed optimisim. It's hardly a coincidence that every campaign across the spectrum has made "change!" its central rhetorical theme. Few of us will give stay-the-course the time of day.

This is a blatant attempt to restructure reality. This is silly boilerplate your side has written, and it doesn't stand up for a second.

You look at most major issues where we are constantly declared to be doomed, and almost all of them have the Left behind it. Climate change. Economic disaster. End of the oil supplies. Death of species. Destruction of the Constitution. Loss of the environment. You can go on with this list as long as I can.

No liberal should ever be able to use the word "fearmongering" with a straight face.

Pessimism is the beating heart of the Left, with the only solution to real or invented problems--always--being turning our lives and property over to our betters. A prosperous, contented, self-confident population is thin soil for a philosophy of envy, class warfare, hatred of success, and dependence on the State.

As far as optimism is concerned, Obama is a glaring exception. Al Gore and his type are the rule.

It is YOUR side that has declared that weakness is more desirable than strength, that negotiating with evil is better than confronting it, and that our only real recourse to dealing with our enemies is to abandon the fight. It's YOUR side that has spent years telling us we are losing the war in Iraq, losing the war in Afghanistan, losing the war on terror, losing our prosperity and place in the world, or even losing the whole damn planet. It's your side that tells us there's no point to controlling our borders, that America's culture, values and history are rank with foulness and not worth either teaching or defending, and that the only proper posture that America should have when facing the world is with our heads bowed head in shame for our failure to grovel sufficiently before those who would not even exist as nations except for us.

And believe me, this crap goes WAY past the current Bush administration.

Sorry, but the Democrats don't get to walk off with Reagan's attitude while leaving Reagan's philosophy in the dust.

Ted Kennedy talks things up a lot, but the fact is that JFK would probably spit on the modern Democratic Party. Try to imagine any modern Democrat giving a speech like this.

Ironically, out of the entire Democratic party, Obama is probably the only one who could even come close to managing it.