Why aren't we fighting

In one respect, the Sarah Palin pick is a big success for McCain. He has managed to completely banish the Democratic candidates from the news while everyone tries to find out who she is and debates whether the choice was a good one or not. Come Monday, the news will turn to the Republican convention and how they handle the issue of Hurricane Gustav as it moves on to the Gulf Coast. By the time the Democrats are next mentioned in the press, eight or nine days will have passed.

Some of that was predictable and inescapable, but not all of it. I have to ask why the Democrats didn't have a counter-stunt ready for yesterday. They knew McCain was going to make an announcement on Friday and try to seize the weekend news cycle. Even if the a Democratic stunt was bumped to the second or third ranked political story, it would still have waved the flag and said "we're still here" through the weekend. Instead the only sign that the part even exists is their reaction to McCain and Palin (which means the story is still Republican and not Democratic).

I have this sick feeling that some twisted sense of fair play made the Democratic strategy masters decide it McCain's "turn" to have the news on Friday--that they refrained from getting in his spotlight because it was his birthday or something. Democrats have a chronic inability to tell the difference between fighting fair and rolling over and playing dead. Too often the choose the latter thinking it is the former. The Republicans are not going to give up power nicely. We need to have fighters in charge of the Democratic Party. Otherwise, the next four years will give us the revolting spectacle of a Democratic Congress giving a Republican President everything he asks for without ever putting up an honest fight. In other words, more of the same.