Free advice

To Dem candidates: Fire your consultants. Start making phone calls to your constituency and they'll tell you what they want. The 'consultants' have been losing elections for you since '94.

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It's that simple. Recent polls have shown that voters by a 2-1 margin think that national security is more of an issue this fall than economic issues, so Democratic candidates must resist the advice of Beltway consultants to play up economic issues and give short shrift to discussing security and Iraq. It was this hesitancy to take on Bush directly over Iraq and his choices in fighting the war against terrorists that led to Democratic losses in the last two elections. Democrats can show voters that they understand the importance of strengthening our hand in Iraq and in the war against terrorists by changing course on both, and they can highlight how more rubber-stamping by GOP incumbents in the next Congress will assist the terrorists and endanger our troops unnecessarily.

And an aside: We'll be leaving for Rome on Wednesday afternoon. I've begun packing today because ... well ... Mrs. F has to live for 16 days away from home. So, if you're at JFK Wednesday evening and see a beautiful woman walking across the terminal carrying tickets, and a pile of luggage following, that's me. Blogging will be sporadic until then (I have to work tomorrow and Tuesday too) but I'm assured we have WiFi on the ship so I'll pick up once we're aboard.