It’s really not all that hard, folks. Even the frickin’ Greens have a mutli-point plan that they’ve stuck to for at least 4 years – The Ten Key Values.

We’ll need an important wedge issue, though, if we want to play the game like it needs to be played. Something important, something that affects the lives of all Americans.

Coke vs Pepsi? Butter vs cheddar-flavored popcorn? Denim vs khaki? Colby vs colby-jack? Spears vs Simpson? Jennifer vs Angelina? The possibilites are endless.

[slamming head on desk]

Fortunately, Betty, you and the blog commenters in the Pandaverse seem righteously indignant. I can only hope at some point that the rest of the left-wing blogosphere will stop accepting D-grade politicking and demand that their Party say something concrete for a change.

I’m sorry, Kos-ers, but if “security” and “economic independence” qualify as ideas, perhaps the party could go even broader in its attempt to please all of the people all of the time. We could offer the following six visionary points:
_Good over evil
_Happiness
_Wealth
_Freedom
_Rainbows
_Unicorns

Who the fuck would vote anti-unicorn?

Focus groups are all well and good for some tasks, say coming up with a name for a prescription nasal spray (though I must say they missed the mark on Flonase — it connotes some unholy cross between Miracle Whip and snot).
But at any rate, you shouldn’t have to convene focus groups to think up a rejoinder to the unmitigated disaster that is the Bush administration and his disgraced and indicted enablers on Capitol Hill.

The points they raised aren’t bad – they just need to flesh them out more. No wait, I’ll do it for them –- or at least the first few so they can get the drift:

Honest and open government: Tired of subsidizing corporations that subvert your democracy, take your jobs offshore and destroy your communities? Vote for us and we’ll enact real reform so that the bastards who are ripping you off will go to jail and you can be assured that your congresscritter is serving your interests rather than Halliburton’s.

Security: Is the war in Iraq making you safer? Do you think it’s a crock that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose while the government wastes millions of dollars trying to pin 9/11 on a kook like Moussaoui, who is clearly too addled to organize the takeover of a rural peanut stand, much less a jetliner? Put us in charge, and we will restore America’s good name in the world so that we can work with our allies and the international community to address the serious challenges we face at home and abroad.

Energy independence: Did you happen to catch the comments last Friday from the Iranian president, Mr. Ahmedinejad? He’s really happy that we’re paying $74 a barrel for oil. He is fortunate in his enemies, because thanks to the Bush administration’s mendacity and stupidity on the Iraqi WMD issue, the rest of the world thinks we’re just as nuts as the mullahs, and there’s no way they’ll stick their necks out to sanction Iran. So Mr. Ahmedinejad will keep enriching uranium, and since there has been absolutely no serious effort to conserve energy or find alternative fuels, our demand for oil will keep enriching HIM. Vote for us, and we’ll put American ingenuity to work to find alternatives. We’ll make conserving energy the patriotic thing to do. We have the technology and means right now to reduce consumption dramatically. And we don’t care if Exxon doesn’t like it.