Florida Democrats start soul searching. Can they find one?

State Democrats look ahead with trepidation, hope:

"'You can see the Cuban-American community move forward in the Republican Party,' says [Democrat consultant James] Harris, who notes that Miami lawyer Al Cardenas was chairman of the state party and that Bush named Mel Martinez to his Cabinet as Housing and Urban Development secretary before urging him to run for the U.S. Senate.

"'They have power. They have juice,' Harris says. 'Black folks look around here and start asking: What are Democrats doing for them? When Democrats are in power, we get nothing.'

"He says the state party has done a poor job of bringing black leaders up through the ranks and preparing them for statewide campaigns. 'There is no mentoring going on,' he says. 'Some black voters are going to start looking at the Republicans where they see Condoleezza Rice (Bush's national security adviser) and Secretary of State Colin Powell.'

"And Harris wonders how the party lost its way on issues such as parental notification when a child wants an abortion.

"'How did we get on the side of 'No' on parental notification?' he asks. 'How did Democrats get on that side based on the obscure notion that some fathers might harm their daughters? Republicans wind up on the 'right' side of the issue, and we wind up on the other side.'

"He notes that an amendment to Florida's constitution requiring parental notification was approved by 65 percent of voters this year."

Maybe in a southern state like Florida this strategy will work, but it will be hard to get the national Democrat party to get on the right side of the voters on abortion-related issues because the abortion provider industry (it's a multi-billion dollar business) and the hard left feminists are key elements of the national Democrat power structure in terms of both personnel and money.

If the Democrats would embrace parental notification, banning partial birth abortion, restricting late term abortions generally, propose more funding for pregnancy and adoption and less for abortions, they could seize the middle ground on the issue without repudiating the basic thrust of Roe v. Wade. But, I am confident they will not be able to do so. Because nationally they run the risk of the ultra-feminists going out to join the greens and other Marxist crazies on the far left and still losing the presidency, even though they would do better in lower level races in many states.