Dem. governors at the meeting of the Nat'l Governors Ass'n plead with their presidential candidates to focus on a pragmatic agenda & urge moderation.

From The New York Times:

Democratic governors pleaded with their presidential candidates to ignore the fringes of the party and focus instead on the “middle 20 percent” of the electorate with a pragmatic, problem-solving agenda.

“Democrats certainly could not win in Tennessee with just a hard-nosed Nancy Pelosi-style Democratic agenda,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. Mr. Bredesen, a Democrat re-elected in a landslide last year, was referring to the House speaker.

Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, said “it’s way too soon to tell” who will win his party’s presidential nomination.

Mr. Rendell has a big appetite for politics. He was general chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the 2000 election. But he is disgusted with the early start to the 2008 race.

“I think it’s insane,” Mr. Rendell said in an interview. “The media has created a two-year presidential election cycle that’s very destructive to American politics. And the political system is complicit. We front-load our primaries so much that four or five states decide who the nominees are going to be. It’s over by February. And then we have a God-awful yearlong presidential campaign, general election campaign, which is too long and lends itself to all these negative attacks.”

“If we were to design a system for electing a president, I don’t think we could do worse,” Mr. Rendell said. “It’s terrible.”