Here's to you, critics.

[JackDragna]

I've seen plenty of posts over the last few days getting after those who get after the Kerry campaign. We're told we should focus more of our energy into campaign work, that Kerry knows what he's doing, that our negativity just gets tiresome.

I, however, am glad there are apparently many others like me here who aren't afraid to go after our own candidate for his mistakes. Believe it or not, those of us who rightly get after the Kerry campaign for its blunders want Bush out of office just as much as the rest of you. I hate Bush, not merely for what he's done to the country, but to the bad feelings he's brought out in my fellow citizens. He's made rightwing people feel justified in bringing out the blackest sort of bile, the kind they'd usually be embarrased to display in public. I pray the man loses the November election.

I will not, however, stand idly by and applaud the actions of our candidate simply because he is our candidate. That Kerry had to get mad at his campaign managers for advising him to take a defensive stand against the Swift Boat Lunatics is a sign the man needs some serious help running his campaign. I've worked on only a few campaigns in my short life, but even I've seen how important it is to take the initiative from your opponent, to set the tempo. Kerry never sets the tempo: he's always volleying back Bush's shots, never serving. A poorly-spoken president with a disastrous foreign policy and economic policy is running circles around Kerry with rhetoric about his Vietnam service and flip-flopping.

I'm not going to stop being critical about Kerry. I hope people here won't be, either. I have no illusions that DU can affect the campaign, but the sentiment that Kerry needs to fight back harder needs to be kept alive. There's so much Kerry could use to hoist Bush by his own petard. Granted, it would cause Kerry to look, for a time, like a bully or that he's "angry," but Democrats have a unique opportunity to blast Republicans in that Democrats can slander Republicans with the truth. All it takes is some guts and a willingness to be called unpatriotic for a while by the lunatic right.

I want John Kerry to be president. Most of all, I want him to campaign and to fight Bush like he wants it, too.