Two weeks out, Kerry returns... to what?

Well, here we are, mostly asleep as I write this, two weeks after the Tuesday night so many of us stayed up, pitifully, 'til near dawn or beyond, frazzled by how things were turning - downward - not exactly in flames but smoking. All that work - the Boss, Paul Newman, the Deaniacs, the Philly Bill Show, Oprah left and right, Ralph Reed holding court in Florida, watching Guns and Gays and God trump most the better natures of a majority of the electorate. That was the night fear (as in that amorphous specter, "fear itself") and the God-fearing won.

Kerry returned to the Senate today and got a two-minute standing ovation from his staff. But he also had the opportunity to grant some major interviews, and he gave one to the Mass FOX channel - and missed another opportunity to say great and compelling things about the upcoming renaissance of Democratic-sponsored SENSE in this country. He said he couldn't name anything he'd done wrong in his campaign, and yet he said that if he did run again (using his $45 million surplus as seed money) he'd "do things better' next time. So maybe the guy is clueless on nailing a message that sticks in voters' minds.

He said he is a "fighter" and that he still has a lot of fight left in him. But haven't his manners and his patrician airs just about suffocated the political soldier underneath? Where's that catchy fight song we missed the first time he spent a coupla hundred million dollars of our money? Maybe he needs to hire Naomi Wolf to teach him some new "alpha dog" tricks - or get Howard Dean back in there nipping at his heals (or feeding him some party lines with TEETH).

Kerry is playing the stealth candidate right now, unbeknownst to some. He conceeded, but supposedly he is doggedly leading a team of lawyers and election tabulators down the long and laborious road to see if this election will stand. November 3rd, he knew that would take time with or without the klieg lights of a rabid media horde, so he wisely chose to shut the lights down and do it the way a lone prosecutor does it - doggedly, one dossier at a time. So he's not exactly off duty, but while he's not making a Gore 2000 circus, why not get George Lakoff to come in and help him write that fight song?

We blue stater types are indeed blue - and we're even bluer if we live in a red state right now. We need that battle cry - maybe not a scream, but a muscular, manly lightning bolt of a DREAM. A place to hang our humble pie and our high hopes before they grow too low.

And when the Republican red meat hits the Red Staters' Superhighway in 2005, they will be low. We'll need Kerry and a slew of others to raise their voices not just in song but in a well-choreographed chorus, introducing our new and improved FIGHT song.