Moving forward on morality, boot Kennedys and Clintons.

For many years now, Democrats pride themselves as the party of the Kennedys and the Clintons. I will admit, they were great presidents. And even the non-presidents, yes, the Senators, aren't a bad group either.

But times have changed. With the 'moral battle' in our country today, is it a good idea to hold on to these icons of our past? I don't think so. We need a new vision.

I was planning on writing this blog before the Patrick Kennedy announcement today that he would go to rehab for his drug problem. But this recent news has just added more meat to the bone.

The recent book "Take It Back" by James Carville and Paul Begala (though I have a feeling that Begala did most of the writing) is a read that I recommend to any Democrat. It is a great book on how to debate Republicans and their knowledge. But, while I highly praise this book, they miss the point on the morality question.

They talk about how Democrats need to explain their views in a moral way to those who consider morality their main issue. They suggest using Bible quotes to reach these voters. I couldn't agree with them more.

But they do miss one MAIN point, and I think they do it on purpose. When talking about any moral issue to a Republican, no matter how well a Democrat makes their point, a Republican will say 'well, Clinton had sex in the Oval Office'!

Yep, that is it! No matter how much sense we make on issues and the morality of our views, the fact that Clinton had a blowjob outweighs any moral explanation of our views.

And, of course, Begala and Carville didn't mention this because they don't want to admit that Clinton did something 'wrong'.

Still, it is hard for Democrats to show that they support moral issues as long as we have 'loose' candidates out there. If we want to show we care about morality, we need to clean up our act. Simply picking a pro-life leader of the Senate Democrats doesn't do it.

We need to show that we aren't the party of the Kennedys or Clintons. It is really hard to talk morality with a Kennedy of Senate bumper sticker on the back of your car (which some smartass Republican will say that your car might end up at a bottom of a lake).

So, who do we bring into the fold? The first moral Democrat that comes to mind is Jimmy Carter. You cannot get any more moral than Jimmy! He should be the spokesperson for a 'Democratic Morality'.

Also, we need to promote more candidates that openly promote their faith as well. The 'moral' campaign that Democrats should look at is that of Mark Pryor's Senate campaign. In his commercials, he is open about his faith, even showing himself praying with his family as the dinner table. These type of commercials shouldn't be reserved to Republicans only.

These are the 'moral' candidates that we need to start promoting. We need to get the 'questionable types' out of the public light and say they do not represent the face of the Democratic Party. We need to show that we do care about morality. And being the party of the Kennedys and Clintons is contradictory to that spirit.

And if we clean up our act, then we can start talking about our issues in a moral way and not look like hypocrites.

Now, I am not saying that Nancy Pelosi needs to start quoting the Bible during her speeches. But when we have a 'clean' Democratic Party, it will be easier for her to talk about 'liberal compassion' in moral way. It will also be harder for the Republicans to trash us on our views as well.

It is time that we embrace our moral leaders in our party. It is also the time for those ultra-leftist in our party not to put down candidates who openly show their morality. Democrats can be insulting and not realize it. We need to respect all faiths, as we do races and sexes.

If we do, we can start making some inroads into the 'moral voters'.