Book Excerpts

But Lord, those current presidential candidates in my party! They are good, smart, and able folks, but if I decided to follow any one of them down their road, I’d have to keep my left turn signal blinking and burning brightly all the way. All left turns may work on the racetrack, but it is pulling our party in a dangerous direction. Whenever the candidates encounter a Political Action Committee group, they preen and flex their six-pack abs for “the Groups” like body builders in a Mr. Universe contest. Or, perhaps more appropriately I should compare them to streetwalkers in skimpy halters and hot pants plying their age-old trade for the fat wallets on “K” Street.

*****

The Democratic Party will never nominate a candidate capable of winning nationwide until it abandons the suicidal compulsion of allowing Iowa and New Hampshire to be the tail that always wags the Democratic donkey… New Hampshire is a great state, but a microcosm of America it is not. Isn’t it strange that based on the outcome in these two states a Democratic candidate likely will be chosen? No, it’s more than strange; it’s suicide.

*****

As much as I deplore my party’s reputation for sucking up to these left-leaning special interest groups, there is another rip in our heritage, in our image, that I regret even more. I fear some of the Democratic presidential candidates are treading on very dangerous ground for the party, and, more importantly, for the country. I do not question their patriotism; I question their judgment. They are doing what politicians often do, playing to the loudest, most active, and most emotional group of supporters, feeding off their frustration while clawing to find some advantage. I’ve done it myself and lived to regret it.

My concern is that, without meaning to, they are exacerbating the difficulties of a nation at war…

*****

And so, Mr. Miller went to Washington. I wish I could say the experience has been like Jimmy Stewart’s in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. I wish I could say that I found Washington all I had ever dreamed it to be, the place where the great issues of the day are debated and solved, and great giants walk those hallowed halls. I so wanted Robert Louis Stevenson to be wrong when he wrote, “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

Unfortunately, what I discovered in Washington was truth, and truth did not set me free. It simply made me mad. It filled me with anger on behalf of Americans. You might still ask why I would want to take my own party to the woodshed. The answer is simple: My conscience made me do it.

*****

Because the advocacy groups have come between the Democratic Party and the people, it is no longer a link to most Americans. Each group has become more important than the sum of the whole. It is a rational party no more. It is a national party no more. So, bang the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, for the sun is setting over a waiting grave.