ONE FINAL WORD ON VALUES

In politics, Jesus has evolved from being a niche market to being THE market. Somehow I don't think he's all that impressed. After all, he's been much more than that to quite a lot of us for about 2,000 years now.

To the youth vote, I don't know what to say. You had your chance? You were the belle of the ball in '04 but decided to go home alone before the party was over. That's not entirely fair, because you did show an interest and that's a beginning. Maybe it will pan out in '08. Either way, the VOTE OR DIE slogan will be taken from its figurative meaning in the Diddy campaign to a literal meaning in '08 by the far right.

I can see it now. "My sources have spoken to the Savior and he says, if you want to go to heaven, vote for me!" Maybe Alan Keyes was on to something after all. Oh, yeah...he got his butt kicked by the guy that Jesus doesn't like. Well, these aren't hard and fast rules.

So everyone is scrambling to understand what VALUES means. What are MORALS and where can I get them? Better yet, how can I sell them? Surveys are being put together, poll questions being analyzed and I'm sure at least a dozen new think tanks and PACS have been formed to put together the '06 congressional campaign strategies.

It's really simple folks and the first hint is, it's not about religion. It's about listening to people instead of telling them what you think they should know. It's about understanding that life on the coast is different than life everywhere else and those people living everywhere else wouldn't have it any other way. Does that make them right? Not about everything. Pushing fear and homophobia isn't anything resembling Christ, but if you try to understand where it comes from you'll be able to handle it better than if you just spit out how wrong it is.

As much as people want to say God doesn't belong here or there, he's still gonna be everywhere and unfortunately, people will take advantage of that and in a lot of places, it will work.

Okay, I take it back. It isn't simple, but if the Dems try and spend these next 3 years doing more listening than engaging in self-righteous blaming, it won't be the big surprise it was this year. They really can't afford that.