THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS SINCERITY. ONCE YOU FAKE THAT...

Although I'd love to just stop thinking about the Democrats' pathetic response to the impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts, let me say that I basically agree with David Leonhardt of The New York Times, who thinks Dems could have fought to end cuts for the wealthy a while back, but now it's too late because most Americans, instead of seeing this as the outcome of a noble battle on behalf of the middle class, really would see it just the way Republicans would want them to see it, as evil Democrats raised your taxes!

But why? Why can Republicans risk brinkmanship on extending the middle-class tax cuts and not Democrats?

Well, it's simple. Republicans can take pretty much any position they choose on any issue because we all "know" what they stand for. Small government. Low taxes. Freedom. Patriotism. Fiscal responsibility. We know this even though anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention realizes that Republicans constantly do things that are very, very much at odds with all of these principles.

But they keep saying these are their principles. Whatever they do they define as consistent with these principles. They may be hypocrites, but they talk like principled people. They don't go off message.

We all know that Democrats don't live up to what we think of as Democratic principles -- looking out for the little guy and so on. But that's not their biggest problem. Their biggest problem is that so many of them -- Blue Dogs and even not-so-Blue Dogs -- love to openly proclaim that they don't believe in traditional Democratic ideas. They don't just fail to live up to those ideas -- they're proud of that failure.

Thus, they brand Democrats as the Party of Who-the-Hell-Knows-What?

If Democrats took even the slightest care to nurture the friend-of-the-little-guy brand identity, maybe they could dig in their heels on the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and people would have an idea of why they might be doing it. But Democrats don't nurture this identity, so most ordinary people aren't really sure what to believe about them, and they're very ready to believe whatever Glenn Beck and John Boehner tell them they should believe.

Actually living up to Democratic ideals might do an even better job of solving this problem, needless to say.