Wisdom from unexpected sources

Sunzi said it,

"...[k]now your enemy"

And amazingly enough, none other than George Will is pointing out potential opportunities for Democrats in 2008. He's also pointing out cleavages in the American political system that don't necessarily fall along party lines. He doesn't quite say it, but it's left for inferrance that the cleavages are there for whichever candidates are capable of exploiting them.

He uses Russ Fiengold's classical North-central progressivism as an example of how the label "progressive" is not stictly a D or an R label in the 21st century--much like it was not a D or an R label in the 20th when laid upon Robert LaFollette Sr. at the end of the 19th century. I would go further than Will to say the values espoused by Fiengold: fiscal responsibility, government spending to fill in where markets fail (minimum wage, retirement benefits, etc), a foreign policy that creates a better world, and a government that works to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity they work hard to earn.

Who knows, we might have an election in 2008 that will bring real issues to the fore. At least a guy can hope, right?