I have noticed the lack of debate as well. My guess is this is happening because of three main reasons:

1) Iraq. There are really no good answers when it comes to Iraq so no one wants to get too detailed when they discuss it. As a result no one discusses it.

2) The hyper-partisanship of the Republican controlled Congress has made useful debate practically impossible. You are either with them or against them and it just isn't worth trying to debate people like that. Also, the Repubs have done such a good job rendering political debate into sound byte sized pieces that they have no place to retreat to when their policies prove unworkable.

3) The Repubs have been in charge long enough that they really have to run on their records, and they just don't have much to crow about in that regard.

which isn’t meant as a justification for our current political culture, just that there usually isn’t much of a mushy middle to win over when there isn’t a President being elected.

The overwhelming number of negative personal adds unrelated to policy and/or performance in office are from incumbent Republicans.

Pointing out that the majority government of your opponents party has achieved little whilst enabling the disaster which is Iraq is substantial criticism of the lack of policy and/or bad policy.

There are no major policy issues at the forefront of this election cycle except for Iraq. We could debate Iraq some more except:

1. It's been debated and rehashed ad nauseum for the last four years.
   
2. Given the public disapproval of the current state of the war, not many GOP candidates are strongly defending it
   
3. Prosecuting the war is mainly in the purview of the Executive. A change in Congress make put a bit of a brake on the Bush administration, especially any planned adventures in Iran or N. Korea, but things aren't going to really change in Iraq until the President decides to change them.
   

Beyond Iraq, what would you like to debate? Universal Health Care? The minimum wage?

Mr. Mead,

One is a comment by our esteemed founder himself - see the third bit -

http://www.claremont.org/weblog/005314.html

The other of course is the piece he references -

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/fashion/29rift.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

In a nutshell politics has become a much more emotional issue than formerly, people are taking these things too personally.

This does seem to be a trend, I have noted it myself. I am one of those Republicans in a Democratic sea, even my wife is a Democrat (though we have never discussed politics).

Mr. Trevino is right in that the outrage is mainly one-way. Even as, oddly enough, in many ways there seems to be a growing practical consensus on a lot of formerly controversial matters. I have seen a lot of this in education.

Well, go ahead and write them. Here's one:

http://theforvm.org/diary/username/what-would-democrats-do

Mr. Mead,

I disagree on its lack of substance. Some of the things it asks for are indeed "mom and apple pie", a lot is ritual and routine anathemization of the other side and demonization of the usual suspects like energy and drug companies, some are fairly minor matters like the minimum wage increase, but some of the specifics are indeed a departure, if seriously meant.

"Energy independence" to start. This is potentially a major departure from the ideal of the market as a means to manage scarcity. It could just be window dressing, but it could, if seriously pursued, also be a disaster. It is one thing to subsidize a few high-profile wind farms here and there as a minor boondoggle. But those parts about "consumer relief" (consumer subsidies ?), "no tax breaks for energy companies" (drilling/nuclear development restrictions or discouragement of power plant construction ?). And so on and so forth.

It could be mostly rhetoric. It could also be an indication of the Democrats fundamental ignorance and miseducation.

There is also a theme there about an element of opposition to free trade, which admittedly is not confined entirely to the Democratic party. But it is somewhat different from the policy of the Clinton administration.

And then there is the surprisingly muted and tentative (the rhetoric here is more whiny than decisive) call for universal health care. I really wonder what is going on there. Perhaps a reluctance to be attacked for being "tax and spend" ? Maybe a real conversion to practicality ?

The Dems have a "first 100 hours" and a "six point plan," but they have no ideas and are the Party of No. I'm not sure what Dems have to do to demonstrate that they have a set of ideas and are interested in implementing them.

That said, you listed a series of policy discussions; the problem is, liberals have correctly recognized that there is no purpose to attempting to discuss policy in the current circumstances. We cannot get anything passed for the next two years, period. The only thing we can do is contain the damage, and so our policy priorities are centered around that.

If the Dems take the House or Senate, come 2007, you're going to see what you saw in 2003 -- a vibrant debate within the Democratic Party about security, health care, and various foreign and domestic issues. But as long as there exists a Decider and a Rubber Stamp Congress, there is literally no return to policy discussion. And, as believers in the free market know, people are rational and respond to incentives.

There was a conscious decision on the Democratic side to downplay the 'six-point' plan. The idea was to not draw attention away from the President's failings by giving the Republicans a policy target to attack. Anything that makes this election less of a referendum on Bush hurts the Democrats, the thinking goes.

I have to admit I was initially disappointed by the Democrats' decision. However, given the recent polling, I have to admit that this was probably smart politics. Of course, the final word will be uttered at the polls. Should the Democrats fail to inspire a decent turnout and, God forbid, fail to capture the House then this decision will be the number one suspect in the failure.

what is there to talk about?

Great line from Billmon:

Now, there is no sweeping narrative for EITHER party. We have a clique of 1970s college Republican who care ONLY for power versus a bunch of confused aging liberals.

Both the GOP and Democratic party need to sweep out the dead wood and bring in new blood. Until then, there simply is little to discuss because its all either (1) inside baseball stuff or (2) talking points aimed at the lowest common demoninator.

Chief example is the House race in my home district, New York's 20th District where both the incumbent, Republican John Sweeney and his challenger, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand have slung truckloads of mud at each other. This is a close race in a normally safe GOP district, so now the DCCC and the RCCC are airing their own attack ads. The political commercials here are starting to make the Jerry Springer show look like an episode of Mr Roger's Neighborhood in comparison.

Midterm elections are always a referendum on the party in power. Full stop. Nothing new, tragic, or particularly newsworthy about it. That an examination of the failures of the party in power has trumped detailed policy debates should come, therefore, as no surprise.