The New Hampshire debate demonstrated several aspects. First, that Sharpton is sharp, except in the realm of the Federal Reserve — but who is? — and that he obviously was deliberately targeted with the unfair question with the aim to embarrass the black candidate.

More important was Edwards’ protest that the reporters’ questioning — gay marriage as an example — did not evoke the real issues confronting the nation. After all, there is a war going on and hardly the time to introduce a frivolous constitutional amendment. Also there was Dean’s response to a question concerning how to defend against Republican reaction: that it was time for the Democrats to set its own agenda. Suddenly the Republicans are crying foul because the mean streak so long their exclusive domain has stirred the Democrats to action. Ed Gillespie, RNC chairman, thinks the nation does not want to hear the “bitter words and stale ideas of Democrats...that soak the rich”

With the exception of Lieberman who is sliding more into the Bush camp than Clark trying to escape it, the Democratic Party is finally waking up in the sweat of working class anxiety, and over extension of the armed services. For too long the American dynamic of fairness and common sense has been a mirage at the outset of the right wing’s undertow that is eroding the beachhead of stability in domestic and international affairs.