Not only do they propose, as a way to arrest the decline, a third party, with no clear policies, programs, popular constituency, or potential leaders; they also present every problem as one confronted by a uniform "we".
He said nine Democratic governors face electorates as restive as the one confronted by Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who lost to Mr. Christie.
The question is the same one confronted by the region's stalled political revolutions: can you liberate people who don't want your brand of liberation?
All the stage sets of youth -- schoolyards, summer camps, Main Streets -- take on a disconcertingly shrunken quality when one confronts them a generation later.
One big challenge his successor faces, he said, is the one confronting all libraries in the Internet age: luring people away from their computers and getting them through the door.
From the start, Mrs. Clinton's task going into this debate, broadcast on MSNBC, was far more complicated than the one confronting Mr. Obama.
And despite the gear-change required when one confronts a Ray film for the first time, it's odds-on that a good many will be seduced.
And just how does one confront that depressing nugget?
