Right wing talk radio succeeds. Left wing talk radio fails. And it's for one simple reason:

The right is a pretty cohesive group. For better or worse, I would say that 80% of them agree on about 25 key things that are "right" viewpoints -- Strong military, low taxes, gun control, death penalty, keeping drugs illegal, etc. Even those who don't see eye to eye on stuff like abortion or school prayer, still agree that it should be handled on the state level. As a result, any viewpoint that is espoused by the talk radio host will find agreement by about 80% of the audience.

The left, on the other hand, is a coalition. Or, a "big tent", as they like to say. It encompasses everyone from gays, to hispanics, inner city blacks, feminists, academia, greens, unions, and so on. As a result, you have a mish-mash of topics that many of the democratic constituents will disagree on. Does a Detroit union member want to hear about amnesty for illegal aliens? Does an environmentalist in Montana relate to a show about the conditions in Compton or Watts? Is solar energy a hot button among feminists? Do the blue collar hunters in Pennsylvania want to listen to gun control? Do black community activists in Birmingham care about gay marriage?

Simply put: When the left talks about a single topic, as many as 2/3 of their audience either doesn't really care, or actually disagrees -- whether it's banning domestic drilling, or promoting gay marriage, or raising taxes, they don't have the same broad agreement or interest at the grass roots level that the right enjoys.

Every four years, a politician stands up and exclaims that we have "the worst economy in 50 years."

The last three months excluded, the worst economy of the last 50 years started sinking in around 1978, and it was squarely due to Jimmy Carter and the democratic congress, who inherited a bad economy and turned it into a horrible one.

We're all overlooking something that is very, very obvious:

Jimmy Carter is still alive.

I propose that we simply ask him what he would do -- and then do the opposite.

Thank you.

A common misconception is that undocumented workers only end up with the "lowest paying jobs."

Many of them work as roofers and in construction -- they type of work I did during summers in high school and college. Today's crop of young people are too yuppified to take these jobs; they'd rather be barristas making $8 an hour than a tradesman making $14, or a meat packing worker making $12.

In the case of construction, many of those entry-level jobs are gateways to trades where you can earn a decent living -- or even start your own company.

Our founding fathers were great men. They weren't simply politicians; they also held jobs as printers, manufacturers, farmers, brewers, physicians -- you name it. Jefferson and Franklin were accomplished in so many areas that it boggles the mind.

But today, we live in the age of specialization: You do one thing all your life. And one thing only.

As a result, we have a class of politicians who really don't know the first thing about what it takes to run a bank, a business, a development company, a hospital, or what have you.

I think the time has come to replace democracy with a lottery. The rule would be simple: You have to have a college degree, be self-sufficient, have been in the work force for no less than 15 years, have no criminal record, and be debt free. Then, if you wish, your name would be entered into a lottery. If your number comes up, you might become mayor, senator, or congressman.

This system, I think, would yield a vastly superior group of representatives than the current batch.

You Wrote: "Obama only compares to Reagan in that he is also a great actor."

You are wrong. They are both marginal actors. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Daniel Day Lewis are great actors.

You're right. Palin is stupid, and Obama is a genius.

Only a well-educated super genius could construct the type of Rube-Goldbergesque worldview that would allow them to see this package as a Stimulus Plan.

In the past, I thought only great minds like Reich could look at a gigantic turd and see how it might be fashioned into a wonderous, vast meatball on which we all could feed. It looks like Pelosi, Obama and the newly-emboldened democratic congress now share this ability.

Dems and Reps blaming each other for the real or imagine declined in America's standard of living overlooks the true big picture:

We had it artificially easy for a long, long time.

WW2 left us as the only industrial nation with a large, educated workforce and an intact infrastructure. England, Japan, Germany, France & Italy were blown to bits. USSR and China were tied down by communism. India was embracing socialism. So, we were free to have a good 25-30 year head start on the rest of the world.

By the 1970's, Europe and Japan were beginning to catch up. And by the 1990's, Russia, China and India were beginning to wake up.

The atmosphere we have now is a return to normality.

Face it: for 9 out of the last 10 centuries, China was the world's largest economy. If you want to maintain a decent standard of living, don't look to the artificial world of 1950 for ideas; those rules no longer apply.

The people who actually pay taxes are tired of hearing "experts" who have never created a job or run a business telling us how they should be entrusted to come up with a plan to run the world and employ everyone.

Why don't you do it on a small scale, and then get back to me on that?