Tom Paine -- Where's the Vision?

Doris Kearns Goodwin got it right the next morning in a post-debate analysis segment on "Meet the Press." What was missing among the nine, she pointed out, was "the larger argument" -- the construction of a coherent alternative vision to the single-minded one of the Bush conservatives. Opposition to the tax cuts is all very well, she said, but for what purpose, to do what? The Democrats need to project an alternative vision of the purpose and meaning of government against those who would dismantle it, she proclaimed, invoking Lincoln's injunction that government exists to do what individuals cannot do for themselves.