Sometimes it seems the Democrats just can't handle prosperity.

Think about this for a minute.

We're headed toward midterm elections where the Demos are in the minority in both houses of Congress and a Republican is in the White House.

But the Republican party is suffering through some pretty tough times.

W has lousy poll numbers on popularity and job performance. He has diminishing poll numbers when you ask people how he's handling the war on terror.

(Remember the last election? W's ability to keep us safe was a big partÊof his victory over John Kerry. Now people aren't so sure.)

W's presided over huge deficits and huge new government programs.

W got us into a now-widely unpopular war using some pretty shaky intelligence.

W's signed off on some potentially illegal and unconstitutional wiretapping.

The Republican Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, has been indicted in Texas.

Jack Abramoff, big-time lobbyist and part and parcel of DeLay's K Street project to get more Republicans elected, is indicted.

Congressman Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham, pled guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. It was the biggest bribe case in the history of Congress.

Now see, all these things - and this is just off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm missing something here - are what I would call prosperity from the perspective of Democrats.

They should be riding high. They should be poised to take control.

But you know what? (And I could be dead wrong about this.) It seems Democrats are really good at squandering opportunities like this.

I mean, honestly, how did they manage to lose in 2004?

There were quite a few negatives going on then, too.

Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says, "The way we're going to win elections in this country is not to become Republican lite. The way we're going to win elections in this country is to stand up for what we believe in."

That's dead wrong. The only way a liberal can get elected in this country is to talk like a conservative.

Nobody campaigns on a platform of higher taxes, more government programs, gay marriage and killing the unborn.

And then you've got people like Hillary Clinton - the anointed front-runner - who says dumb things like this: "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," she told a mostly black crowd at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem on Monday. (That's MLKJ Day, by the way.)

Yeah, we know what you're talking about, Hillary.

Of course, this gives Republicans, like our own U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, the opportunity to say things like: "By comparing the Democratic Party's ineffectiveness in Congress to slavery abuse on plantations, Hillary Clinton is either fundamentally ignorant of one of the darkest chapters of American history, or she's demonstrating that she's prepared to cheapen the suffering of so many African-America slaves to make a crass political point. The fact that she would make such an outrageous claim on Martin Luther Kind Day - of all days - belittles the great sacrifice and legacy of Dr. King. ... Clinton's comments represent a new low in public discourse."

Yeah.

And then there was this gem in the same speech.

"We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."

You know, all that stuff may even be true. But I honestly don't think that's what voters want to hear.

But the Democrats must think it is because they keep piling it on.

You know Hillary doesn't say a word without thoroughly thinking it through or running it by a focus group. That "plantation speech" wasn't off the cuff. It was planned. I just think it's a bad plan.

It's O.K. for newspaper columnists to be snotty. But I think voters prefer more civil discourse from their elected officials.

And finally, at election time, I think many times it comes back to the pocket book. You can talk all you want about domestic issues, foreign policy, illegal wiretapping, ethics and any other issue imaginable.

I really believe people tend to vote with their pocketbooks. As long as they feel like they're doing pretty good financially, they vote the status quo.

And the economy is churning fairly well these days despite spiraling energy costs.

Come November, who knows? But I get the sense that Democrats won't make the big political gains they want to make unless the rein in the vitriol.

(Did I mention I could be dead wrong?)

It's like I always say: "Ah, just another compassionate liberal." [[In-content Ad]]