The circular firing squad assembles.

Clinton pollster/strategist Mark Penn opines...

"The last two Democratic presidential candidates started out with high favorable ratings and ended up on Election Day - and today - far more polarizing and disliked nationally," said the pollster, who cut his teeth on President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.

For the record, Al Gore received a majority of the popular vote, something Bill Clinton never accomplished. John Kerry received the votes of more Americans than any Democrat in history running against an incumbent in time of war.

Certainly, both candidates made a more direct challenge to Republicanism than Bill Clinton did, and Clinton's failure on that score could be included among the reasons the Democratic Party suffered so many losses during his tenure. That could easily be read as "more polarizing," but the outcomes belie the notion that they were more widely disliked than their predecessor.

Our candidates haven't been awful. Our campaigns haven't been disasters. Ground plowed by Al Gore and John Kerry, among others, produced a pretty fine harvest last fall. The work has been hard, and there's much left to do, but I fail to see any potential advantage in salting the ground behind us.

Democrats, please.

Without apology.