MIGUEL ESTRADA….STEALTH CANDIDATE?….Kathryn Jean Lopez writes in The Corner:

Nick Schulz, honorary Cornerite sends this: Wow, I see Tom Daschle come on the TV screen live, so I turn up my volume wanting to know how the Democrats’ Leader in the Senate reacted to the Powell speech, the most significant issue before the country today… only to find that he’s playing the race card, blasting Miguel Estrada with several Hispanic “leaders” behind him as a nice backdrop. Tom Daschle, all class, 24/7.

Were they assuming that just because the administration has something new to say about the war that Senate Democrats should let Estrada slide through without a fight?

Of course, the main attraction of the war to the Bush administration does seem to be as a distraction from a domestic agenda that is either (a) nonexistent or (b) pretty unpopular once people figure out what it’s really about, so that probably was what Nick was thinking.

And speaking of a domestic agenda, does anyone else think that a successful Democratic candidate for, say, the presidency, could basically pin his entire campaign on two things:

  • Deficits, deficits, deficits. Americans, especially moderate swing voters, don’t like deficits.

  • Pounding on Bush for being unserious about “homeland security.” There’s just a ton of stuff to criticize on this front.

I know it’s not like us liberals to pound on simplistic hobbyhorses for months on end, but it’s probably time to start. Bush is pretty vulnerable on both these fronts, and I think they’re proven vote getters.

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