CHALK UP ANOTHER VOICE OPPOSED to the big-head movement in the Democratic Party to make us more Republican ... Ariana Huffington, our favorite foreign-accented commentator. Huffington quotes George Lakoff, whose "Don't Think of an Elephant" is in my must-read pile: "Democrats moving to the middle is a double disaster that alienates the party's progressive base while simultaneously sending a message to swing voters that the other side is where the good ideas are." Huffington adds: "It [moving right] unconsciously locks in the notion that the other side's positions are worth moving toward, while your side's positions are the ones to move away from. Plus every time you move to the center, the right just moves further to the right."

Later in her essay, Huffington spills some tasty legumes: David Sirota is apparently working on a "brilliant" upcoming American Prospect cover story that he is titling "The Democrats' Da Vinci Code," because Sirota has discovered what seems to have escaped many of the Republican-appeasers in the Democratic Party ... that while El Presidente was winning, Democrats also scored impressive WINS in some locales in red-state America ... like right here in Watauga County! Huffington says that Sirota will show "how a growing number of Democrats in some of the reddest regions in America have racked up impressive, against-the-grain wins by framing a progressive economic platform in terms of values and right vs. wrong. These are not 'left' ideas; they are good ideas."

Sirota probably won't mention Watauga County in his article, but he should. Turns out we're emblematic! That, plus the fact that the grass-roots donor base among Democrats has never been larger nor more energized. Huffington observes, reasonably, "This reallocation of power away from lobbyists and big corporate donors will finally allow Democrats to stop taking policy dictation from their corporate financiers and start offering up an alternative vision to compete with George Bush's."

Sorry, Democratic Leadership Council, but we don't see you as the way, the truth, and the light.