The most obvious area in which this rule currently applies is the war in Iraq. The Democrats have put themselves in the position of needing failure in Iraq in order to win the next election. And again, perceptions matter more than reality. Even if America is doing better in the war, what matters most for the Democrats are Americans' perceptions of the war. The worse the stories from Iraq, the better for Democrats.

That helps to explain why the mainstream media, who ache for a Democratic victory, feature stories of wounded American soldiers, grieving families of killed soldiers and atrocity stories -- such as the apparently fictitious story printed in the New Republic. But they almost never feature stories about military heroism and altruism. Americans read and watch far more stories about soldiers who commit atrocities than about soldiers who commit heroic actions and who show love to Iraqi civilians.

The list is almost endless. Thus, when pro-American foreign leaders -- such as Nicolas Sarkozy in France -- are elected, even that is not good for the Democrats. The more the Democrats can show that America is hated, the more the Democrats can argue that we need them in order to be loved abroad.

Undoubtedly, some Democrats might respond that the same thesis could be written if a Democrat were in the White House and the Republicans were out of power. But that is not at all the case. First, there is no equivalent list of bad things happening to America that benefits Republicans. Second, everything written here about the Democrats -- except about the Iraq War, which was not taking place then -- could have been written when Democrat Bill Clinton was president.

I am not saying that in their hearts all Democrats want black America to regard America as a racist society, or want Hispanics to remain unassimilated, or Americans to feel economically discontented, or fewer families to be formed, or America to lose in Iraq, or foreign nations to hate us.

But what most Democrats want in their hearts is not the issue. The issue is that if Democrats want to win, they can do so only if bad things happen to America.