Have Democrats been wrongly marginalized? At Blogforamerica, the answer is "yes:"

As hundreds of thousands of average Americans engage in this great grassroots movement, the standard Republican deception that the Democratic party is about a few elitist snobs won't hold up. It will become increasingly clear that we are America—we are suburban moms, secretaries, accountants, physicians, waitresses, and teachers. We are meeting in our communities and talking with our neighbors. We're rolling up our sleeves and realizing that not only can we do something about the problem but maybe, ultimately, we're the only ones who ever really could.

This is a party that has just elected Howard Dean as its leader, a man who said of the American president during war time: "...We need to remember that the enemy here is George Bush..." Who said, " "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for..."

A one-time Dean consultant once said of fellow Americans who were murdered and butchered by terrorists: "Screw them."

When members of the Democratic party seek a bi-partisan solution to strengthen the retirement prospects for generations of Americans, and seek to reach out across the aisle, they are targeted as being disloyal, and called "faint-hearted."

That's not all. If you're a Democrat who is pro-life, you're met with scorn and thrown to the sidelines.

If you vote for the wrong Cabinet nominee, you're accused of aiding and abetting war crimes.

It only takes one issue, really, where a Democrat votes his or her conscience, apart from the party line, to be cast off. One strike and you're out. Under today's Democratic ground rules, the following would have been laughed out of the party:

Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie. (Pro-lifers.)
John F. Kennedy. (Sent troops to Vietnam while supporting big tax cuts.)
Jimmy Carter. (Pro-life/supported restrictions on abortion.)
Harry S. Truman. (Unilateral war with North Korea and, well, The Bomb.)
Robert F. Kennedy. (Wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine if Ashcroft had done that?)
William Fulbright. (Bill Clinton's mentor, he opposed civil rights.)

It's hard to fathom how today's Democratic party can say it's really the only party that ever could solve America's problems, when Democrats who did solve Americas problems back in the day would now be laughed or shouted out of the room.