The Democrats are recoiling from the Republican National Convention more than Michael Moore does when faced with health food, sit-ups, shaving cream and Christopher Hitchens.  The GOP convention has diminished the already moderate winds in the tattered sails trying to propel the crippled craft called Kerry?s campaign. 

It?s got to be painful to back someone who lacks so much of ? well ? so much, like John Flipper Kerry does.  Face it.  If he didn?t have his wife?s late husband?s money to prop up his feckless political career or Doug Brinkley?s plastic surgical biographical skills to make a silk purse out of a sow?s ear, he would be working at a Border?s bookstore, hosting their ?Americans? for Socialism? poetry read during Tuesday?s Open Mike Night.

Lordy, how they scrambled even before the GOP convention finished!  Kerry?s doing midnight rebuttal meetings still using his Vietnam ?tours? of duty ? all four months of it --  as the main reason he should be allowed to screw up our country.  Not since Jeff Fenholt?s milking of a dubious Black Sabbath stint has someone made more out of a short and very questionable ?tour.? 

Yes, it has got to hurt to be an adamant Democrat.

Think of the pain which the Democrats were forced to withstand during the Republican convention:

1. Watching John McCain forcefully endorse President Bush for re-election, Kerry and his crew must have woefully recalled how they tried to snooker McCain into taking the Dems? Vice Presidential nomination ? just before The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth launched their devastating television ads and released their book, Unfit for Command, now number one on the New York Times Non-Fiction best sellers list.  But the attempts to somehow use McCain for their party?s purpose went decisively south when Senator McCain gave major props to our current commander-in-chief and decisively dissed the Dems? darling, the Minister of Misinformation, Michael Moore.  The pain had to be intense, as they reflected on McCain?s  big Democratic and Independent following in addition to his multitudinous Republican backers.  Those who love McCain on the left, right and center had to be moved by his gracefully delivered and deftly defended salute to his former competitor, his watertight case for the war in Iraq and his moving tribute to the armed services.

2. Another source for agonizing angst for the Democrats must have been watching America?s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, enthusiastically back Bush.  Imagine the Dems? anguish, as they try to get voters to ignore the man who pulled the world?s most diverse and powerful city together after the greatest attack in history on the American homeland.  Imagine the labor involved in trying to figure out what to say or do or allege to get thinking Democrats and Independents not to follow this proven leader of leaders ?  and hilarious Republican communicator.  What kind of sweat is entailed in getting the liberals? teetering moderate constituency to look away from Giuliani who might differ from President Bush on social issues but properly gives them a backseat to the main cause at hand: the war on terror?

3. You know Kerry?s cabal has got that sick, sinking feeling watching Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The Democrats -- so proud of their anything but middle-America Hollyweird crowd and their jaded, stupefied endorsements -- must have wanted to hurl their vegan lunch when Arnold took the stage and verbally gut-punched their liberal pundits to the mat.  Arnold was on fire, informative, and infectious.  Governor Schwarzenegger has five things that Kerry?s barely employed, screw loose Tinseltown mob lack: comedy, class, courage, conviction and a huge crowd.  Ouch, Arnold ? very ouch.

4. Then we have First Lady Laura Bush.  Mrs. Bush must have laid the pain to the lefties when she elegantly took the stage and spoke of her husband?s presidential accomplishments and his personal character, rather than ramble incoherently about her life?s journey and toss a gratuitous bone to her financially dependent husband.  Laura Bush could have read beef jerky recipes, yodeled, gargled with Listerine and played the spoons and still come off better than Teresa Heinz Janis Joplin Kerry did at the Democrats? convention.  Part of George W. Bush?s greatness lies next to him in bed every night in the form of the haven?t-seen-a- woman-like-this in a long time, classy Laura Bush. Continued...