Oh wait, no she doesn't.

I feel the Democrats this year are making a mistake. They think it will be a cakewalk. A war going badly, immigration, high spending, a combination of sentimentality and dimness in foreign affairs--everyone in the world wants to be free, and in exactly the way we define freedom at dinner parties in McLean and Chevy Chase--and conservative thinkers and writers hopping mad and hoping to lose the House.

The Democrats' mistake--ironically, in a year all about Mr. Bush--is obsessing on Mr. Bush. They've been sucker-punched by their own animosity.

"The Democrats now are incapable of answering a question on policy without mentioning Bush six times," says pollster Kellyanne Conway. " 'What is your vision on Iraq?' 'Bush lied us into war.' 'Health care? 'Bush hasn't a clue.' They're so obsessed with Bush it impedes them from crafting and communicating a vision all their own." They heighten Bush by hating him.

One of the oldest clichés in politics is, "You can't beat something with nothing." It's a cliché because it's true. You have to have belief, and a program. You have to look away from the big foe and focus instead on the world and philosophy and programs you imagine.

Mr. Bush's White House loves what the Democrats are doing. They want the focus on him. That's why he's out there talking, saying Look at me.

Because familiarity doesn't only breed contempt, it can breed content. Because if you're going to turn away from him, you'd better be turning toward a plan, and the Democrats don't appear to have one.

Which leaves them unlikely to win leadership. And unworthy of it, too.

These people are always wrong. Always. Yet they're treated as "serious" inside the rarified Beltway air.

Brilliant strategy, George. It looks like the only person suckered into it was Peggy.

Gleen Greenwald, blogging while on a blogging hiatus (I've been there, so I won't cast aspersions):

That was, as Noonan pointed out, an extremely brilliant Republican strategy indeed -- have one of history's most unpopular Presidents, at the height of his unpopularity, make the midterm elections a referendum on him. And those stupid, hapless Democrats played right into Karl Rove's hands (as always) by falling into the trap and talking too much about Bush. That proved that not only would they lose the midterm elections, but that they were "unworthy" of victory. Onto the next column.