Ann Althouse has an interesting excerpt from Hardball last night:

MATTHEWS: Amy, just think right now. I know this is freeform thinking and it‘s right on the spot. But think of who you think of right now as having the true voice of the hearts and minds of the Democratic Party. List a couple of people you think are the true voice of the heart and mind of the Democratic Party right now in 2005 in February.

GOODMAN: Well, I don‘t think it is so much about individuals. I think it is about positions. It is about people taking strong stands.
...
GOODMAN: Well, I‘m not going to give names. I would talk about positions.

MATTHEWS: Why not?

GOODMAN: Because I think it is positions that matter. And we shouldn't focus on personality.
...
MATTHEWS: Well, that‘s the problem. If the Democratic Party is tongue-tied about who their leaders are, that's the beginning of the problem.

She has more of the exchange than I've included, but you get the idea. Positions are great. You have to have them. But you also have to have someone who leads, and executes plans to follow through on those positions. It's easy to have positions... especially when those positions are always against what everyone else suggests. It's much harder to have positions that back a plan, and then have a leader who executes that plan. That's the Democrat's problem. They only seem to say that the decision you're making is wrong... without offering up much of an alternative. So if you don't offer up an alternative, and everything we do is wrong, then everything going on right now must be fine?

I find myself continually reminded of my high school government teacher Mr. Helmenstein. We called him Helmy for short, which he absolutely hated. He was as liberal as they came, and I was a young conservative loud mouth on the debate team. He swore, he insulted people, he threw erasers at us. Hell, he actually made a girl cry the first day of class. Personally I had fun... where else can you insult your teacher to his face daily and get away with it? Anyway, I keep thinking back to how he described Conservatives and Liberals. It was very broad and generic, but has stuck with me all these years. Of course it's been a long time since he said this, so it's obviously not an exact quote, but it was along the lines of:

Conservatives like the status quo. They think that things are just fine the way they are. Liberals think there is something we can always do to make things better, that change is always needed.

This is not an uncommon view of the two halves of politics. After all, it was Winston Churchill who said:

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

The implication being that young idealistic people want to change the world... and the older you get the more you realize that you can't. But is this true any more? Think of the major issues that are facing this nation today. Who's on the side of change and who's on the side of the status quo? Liberals don't want to go into foreign countries and help free people, many Conservatives do. Liberals want to keep Social Security as is, while Conservatives want to radically change it. Sorry Helmy... but your labels just don't seem to stick any more.