I watched the Democratic presidential debate on Saturday, naturally as a Democrat, I watched with utmost interest.

Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards, Graham,Rep Gephardt and Gov. Dean, i think advanced their causes. Ambassador Braun is in only for the ride, but she is a smart cookie and what she is doing is raising her profile so that any Democratic administration would be under pressure to consider her for a cabinet level poisiton or high level ambassadorship. Sharpton was just Sharpton, both he and Braun were clearly short on policy discussions. Kukinch was interesting but too far left to be taken seriously, but he has raised his profile.

At the present time I think Kerry is the one candidate that can challenge and beat Bush. Dean, if nominated, can only win if he brings non-traditional voters like students and activists into the mix. Edwards is a no, Graham looks like the prefect VP, Gephart is too slick. Lieberman is a possibility, but he appears to be too closely tied to Israel and he would not be trusted to be a fair broker in the Middle East, nor would he be trusted to be tough on Israel which sometimes borders on excessive force in the Palestinian issue. In fact he may not be, but he'd have to demonstrate very clearly, his independence.

I find it interesting that there are no legitimate Black candidates in this whole race.

On another note, the Washington Post had an article on Michael Steele, Lt. Gov in MD, African American Republican, faithful Catholic, Business man, etc. The talk is that because he has absolutely nothing to lose, he probably would challenge MD US Senator B. Mikulski for that seat in 2004. I think he is a very strong candidate. I just met the man a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed by him. I understand that he is in charge of altar servers at his parish in St. Mary's, Landover, MD. He is pro-life, anti-death penalty, good on Catholic issues, good on social issues, overall a very strong candidate.