I've Been In A Good Mood For Days. Weird.

First off, I just want to say that blogger meet-ups are fun. I had a fantastic time with repressed librarian and comebacknikki. Can't wait to do it again! Even if they are ass-grabbers who can't pronounce Latin names. By the way, I finally figured out which Prince song comebacknikki refers to. Took me long enough...

But back to politics.

I've been watching the incoming Democratic majority with cautious optimism. There seems to be a genuine desire to work in a bipartisan way to end our involvement in Iraq. After all, neither party has much incentive to have Iraq ongoing in 2008. I am pretty confused that Nancy Pelosi would intervene in the race of House Majority Leader. I would have figured that Hoyer has it locked up, and why create problems? I'm honestly conflicted over the idea that the D's should focus on fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax. For those who don't know, this tax removes all income tax deductions for those above a certain income. It was designed to stop the abuse of tax shelters. Unfortunately, it wasn't indexed for inflation, which means that a lot of upper-middle-class people are beginning to get pushed into it. We certainly need to do something about this problem, but should it really be priority #1? Upper middle class people aren't exactly our most important constituency, are they? Y'know, they're kind of Republicans?

We'll see what happens. My only advice would be for the Democrats to focus on those issues that have broad public support. The chief principle of legislative politics is to concentrate on those matters which unite your supporters and divide your opponents. We should avoid conflicts that will highlight our own divisions. When Democrats fight Democrats, Democrats lose.