Blogging from nearly 35 degrees south of the equator (in latitude) from Buenos Aires I can tell you the world is big. Really big. From Dallas-Fort Worth it is 10.5 hours big flight time – to the capitol of Argentina.

But from way down here the democrats look to be in serious trouble. They are splintering and sputtering going into the 2006 midterms.

The Democratic Party just took a body blow this week, deepening the crisis of the American Left. The historic split of organized labor which took place Monday will slash the Democrats’ cash flow and remove thousands of “volunteer” union workers for the nuts and bolts work of organizing political campaigns and getting out the vote.

Recall how important it was for union support in the battle for Ohio – a battle Gore and Kerry lost. And now that support is possibly cut in half.

The AFL-CIO has been the greatest financial patron of the Democrats, as well as an indispensable adjunct for organizing on the ground, precinct-by-precinct. For years, reliance on big labor to staff a major part of the retail level organization gave the Democrats an advantage in getting out the vote.

The republicans had an increasing edge fundraising through small, individual donations and get out the vote efforts in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Anyone honestly believe the trend is about to reverse?