Michael and Cindy sittin’ in a tree

… k-i-s-s-i-n-g away the Dems’ chances for ‘08.

Moore is demanding an apology from CNN for boosting the war, and Mother Sheehan is threatening to run against Nancy Pelosi.

There’s one person who might approve: Drew Weston, professor of psychology and author of a new book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

Dr. Westen takes the unlikely position that the Democratic Party should, for the most part, forget about issues, policies, even facts, and instead focus on feelings.

What he calls “the dispassionate view of the mind which has guided Democratic thinking for 40 years” is deeply flawed, Dr. Westen argues. What decides elections, he maintains, are people’s emotional reactions, even if they don’t know it.

This knowledge isn’t new, of course. What’s new is that serious people (besides Frank Luntz, who’s been doing it for years) are advising the Dems to act more like the Republicans and go for the gut. The NYT succinctly if prissily lays out the problem:

Many of Dr. Westen’s indictments of previous Democratic advertisements, speeches and strategies — from the failure to strike back to the mind-numbing lists of statistics to the lack of emotional power — are not new. Yet even those who agree with his analysis may criticize Dr. Westen for using the same kind of manipulative techniques that he takes Republicans to task for.

I don’t hear the critics. They’re being drowned out by Moore and Sheehan, and the leftosphere.