Maybe the Democrats don't want their voters to work for them. They certainly don't return the favor.

When Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden tells Meet the Press that "life begins at conception" in his view, he's not helping his pro-choice supporters. In fact, he's setting them back.

It's the same with Barack Obama's acceptance of the Bush verdict on the troop escalation in Iraq. It's enough to drive Democratic activists, to despair.

If we wanted a man in the White House who'd repeat the Right's rhetoric on abortion, we'd have voted for one. Ditto, a candidate who sees goings on in Iraq through the same skewed lens as Bush/Cheney.

Instead, millions of Americans have been working their hearts out to assert the facts about Iraq. And to make the case, for, not against, a woman's right to reproductive autonomy. Pro-choice anti-war Americans needs politicians who'll use their air time to advance their case, not undermine it. On that, Barack Obama was right - in a secular country postulating about the origins of life is not a politician's place.

But he's wrong about the surge. What's reduced violence in Iraq is ethnic cleansing and buying off the paramilitaries. We've eight weeks to go. Let's use the campaign to move this country in a more progressive direction. If we'd wanted to go with the right's backward flow, we'd have voted for a Republican.