Boston Wrapup from Perlstein

The Official Village Voice Columnist And Occasional Op Ed Contributor To The Los Angeles Times of Hoffmania, The Chronicle of the American Condition - that'd be Rick Perlstein - files his report and reaction on the Democratic Convention today. (We give him that title to see if he can fit it on a business card.) Check it out.

The End of Republican Rule
Righteous populism holds the key to vanquishing Bush forever

...Niceness is nice. It makes a body feel good about himself. But it's no strategy with which to win a presidential election. Adlai Stevenson was nice; he lost two presidential elections for the Democrats. Michael Dukakis, Jimmy Carter: They were nice. And look what happened to them.

These days, talking about things like the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us is judged not very nice. Fixing it might require breaking some eggs. The pundits would call it "class warfare." So whenever a concession is demanded in the interests of unity, it will be demanded of the party's left wing, never of the corporate types.

Like the time, Tuesday night, one party liberal - this one - returned to find his seat occupied by one of those blue-suited thirtysomethings. I asked him to give it up. He refused. "We gave lots of money to the Democratic Party," he said, and demanded I sit in the aisle. "It would be shameful if I couldn't get a seat."

It was on behalf of all those poor single women who don't vote and who really hold the explosive power for beating George Bush on November 2, 2004, that I refused to give up my seat.