According to The New York Times, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano,
reflecting on her party's recent losses in the presidential, Senate and
House elections, asked: "How did a party that is filled with people with
values -- and I am a person with values -- get tagged as the party
without values?"

As one who was raised a Democrat and became a Republican only 10 years
ago, I would like to answer Gov. Napolitano's question as honestly as
she posed it.

Gov. Napolitano, your party does indeed have very many people with
values in it. But the Democratic Party is no more representative of the
average Democrat's values than the National Council of Churches is of
the average Protestant's values. Both are far to the left of their
membership.

Here is the Democratic Party as most Americans, including this John F.
Kennedy liberal -- a New York City born and raised, Jewish, Ivy
League-educated intellectual who lives in Los Angeles -- see it.

1. To most Americans, Michael Moore is a Marxist who has utter contempt
for most of his fellow Americans, who goes abroad and tells huge
audiences how stupid and venal his country is, and in his dishonest
propaganda film, portrays the American military as callous buffoons.
Yet, this radical was given the most honored seat at the Democratic
Party convention in Boston, next to former President Jimmy Carter.

2. To most Americans, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are race-baiting
demagogues. Yet they are heroes to the Democratic Party. Most Americans
do not see their country as the bigoted and racist nation regularly
depicted by both black and white Democratic leaders.

3. To most Americans, a man who wears women's clothing to work is a
pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To the Democratic Party, he is
a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of
multiculturalism. The California legislature, which is entirely
controlled by Democrats, passed a law prohibiting any employer from
firing a man who shows up to work wearing women's clothing.

4. To most Americans, Eminem is a vulgar nihilist who poisons young
Americans' minds. To John Kerry he was a man whose anti-Bush hate video
was worthy of endorsement.

5. To most Americans, obscenity-filled evenings should be restricted to
R-rated films or a Las Vegas comedy act, not a major party's fund raiser
attended by its candidates for president of the United States. To
Democrats, those who object to such evenings are regarded as judgmental,
hypocritical and narrow minded.

6. To most Americans, Hollywood stars are regarded as terrific to watch
in films but also as narcissistic ingrates when, between private jet
trips to Cuba and Cannes, they express their contempt for traditional
America. That the Democrats have a veritable monopoly on support from
folks like Sean Penn and Robert "Castro-is-a-great-leader" Redford may
give Democrats a heady feeling, but for tens of millions of Americans it
merely reinforces their belief that the Democratic Party shares
Hollywood's values. Even The New York Times, in a post-election
analysis, wrote of "the possibility that activist entertainers' fervent
endorsements might have cost Mr. Kerry the election."

7. To most Americans, the American military is not only heroic; it is
regarded as more important to safeguarding freedom than any other human
institution, including the ACLU, the United Nations or the university,
to cite three major Democratic Party affiliates. To virtually the entire
Left, which includes the Democratic Party, the military is, at best, a
necessary evil. Otherwise, the overriding doctrine is "Make love, not
war." That is why Harvard still refuses to allow ROTC training -- and it
is unlikely that either of the Massachusetts senators even finds that
wrong, let alone as reprehensible as most Americans do.

8. To most Americans, gays are fellow Americans who happen to be
homosexual and who should be accorded the same respect any fellow
American is accorded. But most Americans also believe that America
should retain the millennia-old definition of marriage as man-woman.
They regard liberal judges who take it upon themselves to redefine
marriage with contempt. And these judges are identified with the
Democrats.

Gov. Napolitano, I hope that this short list answers your question
about how it is that your party has gotten tagged as "the party without
values." Indeed, the real question, as this observer sees it, is how has
this party retained so many people who have traditional American values?