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Donald LaCroix br> Connecticut /p>

William Tucker's "Goodbye To The New Deal" is an astute assessment of what ails the Democratic Party. The hodgepodge of disparate factions could not hold together forever under the centrifugal force of contradictory tribal interests. Particularly satisfying is watching the Dems march into armed camps in the bitter culmination of 40 years of racial grievance and identity politics which they formerly used so adroitly against Republicans and conservatives. It was inevitable and is exceedingly fun watching them turn on each other. The battle preparations continue apace and I think it'll go on to their convention.

There, I believe no matter how it's done, should Hillary wrest the nomination from Barack it will be perceived as the Great Betrayal by the black base of the Democratic party who will rightly cry foul and be deeply, perhaps irreparably aggrieved. They will finally see that the party of slavery, Copperheads, Jim Crow, the KKK, segregation and Bull Connor are fine with their votes and cash so long as they remember their place. And it ain't in the front of the bus. It isn't important whether race is at the heart of Democratic primary voter's opposition to Barack but rather how it'll be perceived by Democratic blacks and Dems can thank themselves for fostering the identity worldview. Whether the Dems can sufficiently heal that breach in time for November, or ever, is an open question. Even if Barack holds on and is nominated the black base will not soon forget the flogging he took from his party masters and overseers. They will remember it was the Democratic Man (albeit in pantsuits) keepin' him down. As a bonus, after this ugly domestic quarrel spilt onto the street for all the neighborhood to see, it's going to be hard for them to point any fingers in the future.

The other good news for us, as Tucker points out, is Barack is now revealed as the shallow, elite-minded liberal he is. He is John Kerry in style without the experience. Imagine that, a Democrat shallower and of less substance than John Kerry! We can thank a ruthless Hillary and the Dem's Byzantine nomination rules, another product of their factionalism, for taking the shine off him. His rhetoric was like a mirage at a distance but get just a step close enough and it evaporates. We have gotten close enough and we now see clearly that instead of a beautiful oasis there is no there, there. Just more of the unrelieved, barren wasteland of pure liberalism without even the proven survivor qualities of Hillary. And so six months ago I was worried how we would get a handle on him in the general election without eliciting the inevitable charges of bigotry and racism but now his claims to be the Great Thinker, Great Reconciliator and Great Hope are laughable given he cannot even bring his party together, his ideas and thinking are the same old and his personal story is being told by someone other than himself and media acolytes. From here on out his rhetoric will beguile fewer and fewer normal Americans.

p>Lastly, a little nit to pick. I believe it was Sen. Phil Gramm (R, TX), not Newt Gringrich, who with his characteristic impish grin, said on the morning after the election in 1994, "the civil war is over." He was referring to the historic fact that the South had shifted en masse to the Republicans and if I remember also said, "the day of the southern 'yellow dog Democrat' was over." br> -- Mark Shepler br> Jupiter, Florida /p> p> You might enjoy FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell. Far from being dry-as-dust economics and history, it makes fascinating reading. I highly recommend it to everyone. br> --

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