GIVE 'EM HELL, ZELL

I saw Zell Miller on a Sunday talk show yesterday...and listened to every word he said.

Why? Because I'm a Southerner...and I recall as a boy hearing my parents tease my great uncle that he would "vote for the devil if he ran on the Democratic ticket".

Make no mistake - I'm not anxious for the Democrats to regain their dominance in the South...

But if they'd listen to Zell - well, we can all respect the Democratic party who gave us "...ask what you can do for your country."

But that party is gone.

Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, looked south and said, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."

Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, "I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell."...

So, four times — 1972, 1984, 1988 and 2000 — the Democratic candidate couldn't carry a single Southern state. Not one. Zero. Zilch. And two times, 1968 and 1980, only one Southern state favored the Democrat.

Either the Democratic Party is not a national party or the candidates were not national candidates. Take your pick.

But there is more to this sorry tale. In the mid-term elections of 2002, not a single national Democratic leader could come to the South to campaign without doing more harm than good.

Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe couldn't come. He was too liberal. Bill Clinton couldn't come. He was too liberal. The party's titular head, Al Gore of Tennessee, who two years earlier had put up a big fat zero in the region, couldn't come. Too liberal. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle couldn't come, nor House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt. Too liberal.

Little has changed, except that Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California has taken the place of Gephardt, which makes it even worse when it comes to romancing the South.

If this is a national party, sushi is our national dish. If this is a national party, surfing has become our national pastime. The people leading our party and those asking to lead our country are like a bunch of naive fraternity boys who don't know what they don't know.

Read the whole thing here.