Establishment Democrats - that's the elected Democratic Washington elite, their paid hucksters and sycophants - are having "buyer's remorse" about Sen Kerry. The Senator is an unattractive campaigner, and slow to take advantage of opportunities. Their latest buzz is putting Sen Edwards on the ticket in order to get a little glamour going. But, they are worried that Sen Edwards and fmr Pres Clinton will easily steal the limelight, thus ruining Kerry's chances.

Now there also appears to be a problem about why Kerry is running. The Kerry campaign is having trouble finding issues and problems that really define the candidate, or cause voters to prefer Kerry to Bush. They have not considered that, when a candidate rushes to agree with the opponent, it removes differences and reasons for voting for the challenger.

1. Iraq: The Conquest failed. The US must get out NOW, and repair relations with allies.

   Pushing for more troops, agreeing with Bush about 'stay the course,' etc is not only the wrong policy, it doesn't get any votes. The Bush policy failed; it's time for something else.

2. Poverty: Median (not average!) household income has been sinking since George W Bush got elected. The bottom half is worse off, and those of us living in poverty are much worse off.

   The poor are getting squeezed out of life. The minimum wage is too low. Health care is either poor quality or unavailable. Food stamps are hard to get. Education and training programs are being cut. People treat the poor as if they did not exist. Need I go on?

   What is needed is TAX INCREASES on the upper crust, not only to reduce the deficit, but to fund programs for the poor. Once upon a time, Democrats were advocates for the poor.

3. Health: The people need Universal Health Care, preferably single-payer. Seniors need a real prescription drug benefit, not BUSHCARE.

   Bush says he is running on privatization of Social Security and Medicare. Most Seniors are opposed to that, and BUSHCARE as well. Once upon a time, Democrats were in favor of universal healthcare, prescription drug benefits and other things like that. Those things have been in the Democratic platform since 1948.

4. Education: A disaster area for many years, because conservatives keeping pushing privatization of education. Giving over education to the mostly-religious private schools is not just going backwards, it defeats democracy.

   We need a comprehensive program aimed at educating everyone from pre-school through college. Times have changed: a HS diploma is no longer enough. Public universities should be tuition free, 100% taxpayer-paid, or, at worst, tuition should be very low. Or, we should set up a public vocational school system, similar to what has been done in Germany.

   Education for all is a public responsibility, not an advantage for the privileged few.

5. Work: Jobs are most needed by the poorest. Work-training and job-placement programs are in short supply, especially those that follow-up each person and help develop a career.

   One of the problems the poor have is getting dumped shortly after finding a job. For them, employment is an expensive revolving door. Rich people have agents, so why not poor people as well?

   Union busting should end. Unions are a logical way to organize people by trade, train them, find them jobs, and provide long-term benefits. The eventual alternative to private unions is government agencies.

I could go on. It's not as if people are short of problems. Perhaps the most important thing for a wooden-headed politician to remember is this:

In a Democracy, Solutions Begin with Good Government