...by joking that Cheney would be president. And rightly so; the last thing the Democrats need to be talking about right now is impeachment. The public doesn't want to hear about it, because in all honesty they are just as guilty on the war as George Bush is.

What the Democrats should be projecting right now is a sense of confidence and optimism. Leave the polarization and the negativity and the vindictiveness to the Republicans. Americans are sick of it.

Republicans have long prospered by promoting divisiveness; they've done it by constantly bashing liberals and the liberal concept of American self government. Democrats need to respond by promoting unity and a renewal of faith in democracy. They should say that we're ALL Americans, gays and heteros, black and white, Christian and non-Christian, immigrant and native, red state and blue state; we're all in this together and we can only prosper together.

Republican bashing of "big government" has led to incompetence in Katrina and the quagmire in Iraq and a shaky economy that has left too many people behind; it has left Americans feeling helpless as gas prices rise and wages decline and the world grows ever warmer. Democrats need to put forth a can-do spirit; we can recover from Katrina, we can get out of Iraq honorably, we don't have to be at the mercy of gas prices and the environment. We can take care of ourselves and our sick people and old people. What we need to do is to once again start believing in ourselves and in the possibilities of American democratic self rule.

If Democrats want to unify the country, they need to unify themselves. The first step is to ask moderate and conservative Democrats to stop engaging in the popular Rush Limbaugh promoted hobby of bashing liberals. They don't have to take liberal positions, but they do need to stop compulsively denigrating liberals, as did the Democratic candidate for governor in Missouri recently in the New Yorker when she claimed she wasn't a liberal because she believed in the existence of evil. To bash liberals like this while belonging to the liberal party is simply self defeating.

The second step is to ask left side Democrats to stop bashing American democracy. American democracy is still the best hope we've got, and the popular left wing hobby of bashing America as being utterly in the control of corporations only feeds the darkness that Republicans thrive on.

Those who can't or won't stop the bashing of liberals or of democratic self rule should be asked to leave the party--join the Republicans or join the Greens. Everyone else left over should be considered a real Democrat.

I think these would be pretty good steps for defining the party and having a winning platform this November.

...by taking clear and consistent stands that can be defended and built upon.

The Democratic party hasn't done anything like that in the last 30 years, let alone the last 12. They can start to fix that by rejecting and countering both the right wing and the left wing's extremely negative and derogatory views of American government.

The right wing thinks American government is nothing but watered down communism. The left wing thinks American government is nothing a front for corporate interests.

But American government is really supposed to be government of the people, by the people, for the people. That's the rock on which Democrats ought to stand, against the negativism of both the right and the left. This is the original liberal conception of American democracy, and it says American citizens have the sense and the competence to rule their own lives through their own government. We don't have to fear either 'big government' or big business, as constantly alleged by the right and the left. We can master our own lives and it's our responsibility to do so. For instance, if we choose to, we can have a health care program that covers everyone, and we don't have to fear that it will turn into communism or a giveaway to the corporations--because we, the people will run it.

This is an optimistic view which harkens right back to FDR and JFK. I think the public would welcome a return to the clear and optimistic values of real liberalism.

And, yes, if you want to keep yelling at the demonic liberals, then you probably don't belong in the Democratic party. What else can I tell you? This is the party of FDR, JFK, Truman, LBJ & Clinton. They were all liberals in any meaningful sense. None of them were demons, but all of them were demonized at one time or another by both the right and the left. They all supported the concept of American citizens responsibly making their lives better by taking action through their own government, as opposed to the libertarian notion of all of us waiting around like monkeys for shiny red apples to fall off trees.

They were liberal, but they weren't Naderites. They would have never followed Noam Chomsky. Chomskyites should support the Greens or some other third party. Their philosophy has no relevance among the Democrats.

I think this leaves a lot of room for many people to be in the party. I didn't say that everybody has to follow the same program. Harry Reid can be anti-abortion and Russ Feingold can be anti-war. All of that's fine. People in the Democratic party can take their positions and support them.

All I'm saying is, just don't knock liberals in the liberal party and don't knock American government in the party that's supposed to be pro-American government. I think this is simple and clear and not too much to ask.

'Oh look, it's someone a little bit different! Let's pick on him.'

Maybe people want to have a beer with him so he'll leave them alone. I used to know guys like that back in high school.