By: Dr. Mickey Isikoff

We are all Democrats. We are all united in our profound sadness and dismay at the course of our country. We are all united in our desire to defeat President Bush. The reasons for our feelings do not have to be repeated here. We are the committed.

We face a crisis today. We face the possibility of four more years of isolation from the world community, four more years of giveaways to the rich at the expense of the many, the loss of our social safety net, and, most importantly, the possibility of two or three more right-wing zealots on the Supreme Court. Think what this country would be like with three more Clarence Thomases on the high court.

Republicans do not seek merely to beat us in the next election. They seek to annihilate us, to destroy us as a party for a generation. They seek to gain a supermajority in the Congress that is veto-proof. There will be no compromise if they succeed, no moderation of their agenda. They will be free to remake this country in their own image and that is truly scary. Not only for me, but also for my children and grandchildren. We cannot let this happen.

It is my belief that if we nominate Howard Dean we will be handing the Republicans exactly what they want, a landslide victory that will bury us. This is not just my opinion; it is probably your opinion as well. From most accounts, it is also Karl Rove and the Republican leadership's opinion. Howard Dean is a good man and he has mobilized a massive pool of followers. But his candidacy is built on anger and anger will only take you so far. He has too many weaknesses to succeed in the general election.

Those of us who believe this must unite. I would love to see any of the men mentioned above elected President, but for reasons I have discussed previously I do not believe any of them can. It is my opinion that the best candidate to challenge George Bush in the next election is Wes Clark.

We who oppose Dean are in the majority in the Democratic Party, but right now we have too many good candidates splitting the vote, allowing the weakest candidate for the general election to dominate. This is too important a time in our nation¹s history to do that. We must not let this
happen.

Your candidates are fine men who have spent the majority of their adult lives trying to improve the lot of the average American. But some of them Ohave almost no chance at getting the nomination. With no money and little support in the polls, these candidates should drop out. They cannot succeed, even many of their supporters realize that. But they can lead us to disaster.

Let us unite around the viable candidates before it is too late. If Wes Clark should falter I will support the strongest candidate remaining,Let me also be clear that if Dean gets the nomination I will support him as well. He is a good man and would make a good president. My argument with his
candidacy is based solely on what I perceive as his inability to appeal to a broad-enough cross-section of the electorate to win the election.

It was Will Rogers who said, I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat. Well, the Republicans are organized this year and they are out for our blood. This year above all else we need to be united and organized to compete. Please let us do this before it is too late.

Mickey Isikoff (who asks that he not be confused with Newsweek writer Michael Isikoff) is a retired physician, who lives in Florida. He has never been involved in politics before. He says that the "direction of this country under Bush has galvanized me to get involved."