Our Man Dobbs isn't suffering fools lightly.

The ascension of the so-called Lou Dobbs Democrats in the November election gave hope to many that our representatives and senators were awakening to the need to represent the largest single group of voters in the country, 150 million working men and women and their families. The reality is, however, corporate America and special interests still dominate our legislative and electoral process.

A successful Democratic candidate running for his or her party's nomination is as dependent as any Republican seeking the nomination of his party, and $100 million is the price of the ticket. Who has the money? Corporate America and Wall Street, of course.

Corporate America will fight as hard to control the Democratic agenda as it has to control the Republican agenda in Washington. Of great service to their efforts will be the "think tanks" bent on preserving the status quo and the all-but-absolute domination of corporate America over our political process.

The Democratic Leadership Council is obviously frightened that my brand of independent populism is a threat. The council claims that I, and those who agree with me, "are simply, factually, decisively wrong about the strength of the U.S. manufacturing economy itself," and that the more than three million jobs lost in manufacturing are a testament to corporate America's technology-based efficiency, not outsourcing and offshoring to cheap foreign labor markets. Then why are foreign-produced imports rising so dramatically and taking an ever-larger share of many of the most important sectors of our economy?

[..]Why are the partisans of both political parties so committed to denying the economic and social reality we face? In the case of the Democratic Party, there seems to be a rising fear that more Lou Dobbs Democrats are on the way and are going to demand truth over slogans and an improving reality for working men and women rather than ideological posturing that will salve the corporate masters of both parties.

At least the Democrats still have a chance to save their souls.