I was thinking about a few of the fantastically boring candidates the Democratic party puts for President. Let’s go down the recent list of losers:

• Hillary Clinton
• John Kerry
• Al Gore
• Michael Dukakis
• Walter Mondale

Really, really boring.

I voted for all of them, but I had to shake my head sometimes.  As exciting as Obama was, and as interesting as Bill Clinton turned out to be (good and bad), the Democrats have generally nominated people who are calculatedly boring.

Understand: I think the actual people, down under their public images, have been impressive, solid politicians and statespeople. Kerry really was that hero. Gore deserved his Nobel Prize. Clinton was a solid Secretary of State, and it’s hard to overstate how impressive she was during that godawful campaign. Republicans threw so much utter garbage at her, and she remained graceful and adult throughout hours of mindless hearings and stupid fake news. Child sex slaves under Comet Pizza? Really?

And boring. She had no obvious positions until Bernie Sanders challenged her. When he did, this interesting, creative person suddenly appeared.  He was great, and he was great for her.

Hillary wasn’t born boring, but she was forced to make herself completely featureless to avoid being savaged by the Republican machine. Republicans have years of practice at finding any rough edge and siccing their surrogates onto it, and repeating it endlessly, as Democrats twist in helpless embarrassment. The result is to become brown, flat and dull as dishwater. Or die, flayed to death.

John Kerry was both a legitimate war hero, and a hero of the anti-war movement, both in the same war. I mean, beat that! George Bush’s family connections got him out of the draft and into the Reserve, a duty he never quite finished. Easy-peasy, right?

And the Republicans managed to tar the war hero as, somehow, cast as not anywhere near as courageous as that other guy. Charming. And ‘swift-boating’ enters the lexicon.

Remember Howard Dean? He made a funny noise late in the evening at a campaign rally. A shout or a roar, trying to boost the morale of his exhausted workers. It was captured on video, and the Republicans put in on rotation in ads, and by their captured news sources. Dean withdrew shortly after.

How gutless are the Democrats if they abandon one of their interesting and progressive candidates because he made a funny noise. Once.

Michael Dukakis wore a silly hat. Once. Yes, it was a mistake, and he looked silly wearing it.  He was already the nominee, so Democrats couldn’t abandon him, but I bet a lot of people wanted to. The town bullies got together and made fun of them! The Democrats responded by… running away? Complaining afterwards that the bullies had been unfair?

Do we ever get out of high school? The aggressive Republicans accuse the Democrats of being sissies and mama’s boys. Anxious Democrats cringe insecurely and try to hide.

So now we have Trump who’s almost the perfect bully. He reacts aggressively and excessively in a variety of situations, he’s fantastically insecure about his manhood, he has little or no empathy, he’s unable or unwilling to limit his attacks, and in the end, he’s happy with any violent finish, no matter how hideous it becomes. Even when he has no reason to attack, even if it’s obviously against his interests, if he perceives weakness, he can’t stop himself from attacking. Go ahead, keep attacking the articulate Gold Star parents. But he’s so insecure that he can’t back down on any issue, ever.

He’s nobody’s devout Republican, but he stole their playbook, and they’re still pissed. Trump took the same thing Republicans have been doing for decades using code words and hints, but Trump was loud and obvious. All their careful laundering and obfuscation was undone. Everyone could see what the shrieking, orange-haired idiot was really doing.

And the Democrats go along with each attack anyway, accepting the setup and the conditions, buying into whatever manufactured Republi-Trump rules the orangutan makes up today, only twisting at the last second, trying to weasel out of the hacked conclusion, a fight they know they’ll lose. The bully is being his own referee, after all.

I’m tired of trying to defend this. We have an administration that’s guilty of working against American interests from before their election.  They are lying kleptocrats serving the whims of their corporate masters and now, maybe Russian oligarchs.  Republican have spent decades gleefully tearing at the fabric of our nation for their own short-term benefit. They wrap themselves in vile patriotism to hide the fact that they no longer have any remaining discernible principles other than winning.

And now their main spokesman is a cartoon villain, wearing a hysterical comb-over, one of the worst spray-tans ever, and fielding the debating skills of an angry toddler. A guy who wore a silly hat for months. A guy who can’t discuss the weather without lying through his teeth.

And the Democrats still can’t seem to clinch the deal.

Either we need radically smarter behavior from Democrats, or we need another party.