My Music is Minimal I play more Minimal than anybody!

Michael Barone's latest article is interesting. I'm not sure I entirely disagree with him, although I don't think he goes far enough. He notes that neither party has a candidate they are entirely thrilled about, and, more to the point, neither party has a story they can sell to the American people.

Today's parties lack such narratives. The Democratic Party is all about, well, listen to its rhetoric. It's all about opposing George W. Bush and all his works. But where to go from there?

. . . The Republicans are no better. Many say the party must go back to Ronald Reagan, and the Reagan narrative is at least of recent vintage. Reagan taught that government had grown overlarge and must be cut back and that America must be the assertive champion of freedom and democracy. The problem is that none of the Republican presidential candidates occupy Reagan's place on the political spectrum, and the problems we face are not those that confronted Reagan in 1980.

That last line is pretty honest, surprisingly honest.

That said I'm not sure you can start with the narrative; I think you need the person to make the narrative work. It's possible there is a person out there; we could be talking about the Edwards era or Obama era or even "shudder" the Romney era. But right now it looks like both parties are offering up nothing. Or to be more precise, nothing that strikes America as distinctive.