Salon’s War Room agrees with me about Kerry’s bad week, so they must be brilliant:

“But this isn’t just Kerry’s problem. It’s a party problem, and one for anyone who wants to see new leadership in Washington. Which begs the question: Where are Kerry’s surrogates? Where is the unified Democratic Party we heard so much about during the primaries? Howard Dean came out to support Kerry on Wednesday, and ended up generating controversy by suggesting Bush’s war in Iraq led to the Madrid bombings. Dean later clarified the remark and reporters chased Kerry until he distanced himself from Dean.”

Yes – where is the party? As Atrios pointed out yesterday (also agrees with me, therefore also brilliant) in the post United They’ll Stand

“The Democrats have about 250 members of Congress. They have numerous official and non-official allies. They need to figure out how to use them to run this campaign in the 24/7 news cycle in a media landscape which is much more fractured than it was back in 1992. At any point in time, they need to have dozens of people ready to fan out to every possible media outlet and perform the inverse judo flip any time the Bush machine turns on the slime. There should be a small army, including a couple top generals, ready to lend their voice on any subject at any time. They should be briefed and prepped with the latest talking points, and they should be out there screaming them at every opportunity.”

So how about it? WHERE”S THE PARTY?