A DEFINING MOMENT isn’t about reality, it’s about unconscious public perception. For example: Dan Quayle will forever be remembered for his “misspelling” of the word potato, not because it was an important event, but because the public already suspected he might be a dummy. John Ashcroft will forever be a religious nut because the curtain over the boob symbolized what people suspected–that he was a little too devout for centrist America. Never mind that Quayle is both bright and capable or that Ashcroft isn’t a Wahhabi nutcase (or that he never asked for the curtain). Those caricatures are now cut into stone.

And so it may be for the Democratic party today. For two generations Democrats have coasted on the caricatures established by FDR and JFK. The Democrat from Central Casting was a slightly corrupt, slightly dopey do-gooder with stars in his eyes and gold in his heart. But a new Democratic caricature emerged this fall: One of the power-obsessed politician who will do anything to win.