Assuming that the house and senate are rescued from the repulsives,

[SoCalDem]

there will be limited things that can be accomplished, and I am hoping that the next two years are spent well..

We will still have an obstructionist president, an obstinate vice president, a clueless secretary of shoes state, and an indignantly obtuse secretary of defense.

Democrats should prepare themselves for the onslaught when they start the investigations, but they must not let that cacophony distract them.

Investigations MUST proceed, if the dems have any hope of continuing the trend in '08.

If they just go into it with a "business as usual" attitude, people will be sorely disappointed.

Everyone needs to see people take their lumps for bad behavior, and the behavior of the past 5 years is about as bad as it gets.

They need to have as many OPEN sessions of interrogation as possible.

It's unlikely that they will have a veto-proof number for legislation, so in order to escape the "obstructionist" label, they must be careful not to overreach.

The next 2 years should be an "easing back into" power, so that when they DO get back into the White House, some real change can be made.

It does no good to craft legislation that will end up vetoed.

In '09 , we may have our last best chance to save what's left of this country, and I would hate to see that chance slip away.

Media needs to be taken on ..in a big way.. If the Fairness Doctrine cannot be re-instated, there needs to be some serious "un-bundling" attempted, at the very least. Choosing fair-minded, decent people to replace the creeps on the FCC will be a good start.

Health care MUST be addressed, but before that happens, the media must be available for REAL dissemination of the facts..not the propaganda we have now.

Corporate person-hood must be revisited. That goofball idea has lead to OUR votes being diminished, because money talks.

Lobbying MUST be addressed in a substantive way ...It's BRIBERY, and it has to stop.

We need to have civics & government inserted into school curriculums as mandatory subjects, so that the next generation will understand how government works.

We must have publicly funded elections with PAPER BALLOTS, and NO outside money. The free airwaves we give to media must be offered to legitimate candidates (there ARE plenty of unused channels)

Some of the things that have been done, will be difficult to undo, and they must resist the temptation (and we must give them the leeway) to take too much on for the next 2 years.

They must convey the message that they INTEND to take these issues on, but first things first.

We have to have a REAL 9-11 commission
We have to have a REAL Iraq debate
We have to have REAL debate on the environment

Those things could be done via hearings, and of course this time around, everyone would be under oath, and testifying in PUBLIC view.

I know that these candidates are chomping at the bit to get to work and change things, but they must be careful not to try too much, and fail. The last thing we want is to have the repulsives have something to run on in 2 years. Lots of them might just be ready to sit in the back and plot their triumphant return in two years.

[texasleo]

1. You cannot add this user to your buddy list because

this user is already in your list.


O8)

[Junkdrawer]

2. Remember the Gang of 14 ?

I'll bet a group of "Moderates" appears to play the role of stoppers.

[SoCalDem]

3. Everyone wants their own moment in the spotlight

so I suspect that you are right.. and there will be a lot of posturing for the '08 election..

But I can hope :)

[Junkdrawer]

4. Had we 'moderate stoppers' in 2002, we could have avoided...

a lot of the pain of the last 4 years.

Now that we need to rollback a lot of the damage (as your OP suggests), we'll get the stoppers.

[SoCalDem]

5. I sure hope you are right

The gang of 14 did a lot of huffing and puffing, but they folded most of the time and gave junior what he wanted..

If we can get to 51, we only really need NINE more ..but for an override we would need more..

Someone needs to set junior in his place...firmly.. so he just runs out the clock.

I'd really like to relegate him to bike riding and brush clearing for the next 2 years:)