VIEWS: "Litmus Test."

This, it strikes me, gets at the heart of one of perhaps two or three things that will ultimately determine who is inaugurated on January 20, 2005:

"Litmus Test: Time for Kerry and Democrats to Take a Stand for Our Votes and Our Financial Security"
By Dave Lindorff   |   CounterPunch   |   September 1, 2004

John Kerry's campaign managers are reportedly in near[-]panic mode. Their candidate, who was supposed to be pulling ahead of Bush, is slumping in the polls even before Bush reads the acceptance speech his own campaign hands him on Thursday evening. And little wonder there[']s panic: Kerry and his Democratic Leadership Council minders have thus far managed to make him the candidate of no ideas, no positions, and no spine.

On foreign policy, he offers just a promise to do everything Bush has done, only "better" in some vague, undefined way. Domestically, he has offered little that would energize the traditional Democratic base.

Fortunately, this past week he was handed a golden opportunity to finally stake out a position that could define him as a true man of the people-one that, if he would take it, would win him Republican votes even from religious conservatives, while losing him almost nothing. [Story continues...]