it's speculated that hillary will be running against either gov. george pataki or "the country's mayor" rudy giuliani (time magazine's person of the year 2001). she only won 55%-44% in 2000 and you know giuliani (despite his "blame the troops" comment) is more popular now in the wake of the terrorist attacks. i think she'll win too, but it will assuredly be closer than last time.

jason, i disagree with you slightly. rove's strategy worked because the republicans have no qualms about pushing wedge issues for purely political reasons. it's the "preaching to the choir because that's how you get them to sing" approach.

what democrats need to to do (since the wedge issues we have to push don't seem to be as powerful) is take the republican assertion that the left is "out of the mainstream" and turn that around on them. something along the lines of "since when are freedom, liberty and rights out of the mainstream?"

pusing the democratic party further to the left only leaves us more vulnerable to attack with these "moral" wedge issues. plus, moving the party dramatically left will almost assuredly lose us those "ton of independents."

rights are moral; there's no reason we can't win that argument.