The Product of a Political Conversation With My Husband in the Shower

I know what the Democratic party needs to do to fix our country. I admit it, I'm pretty much a Democrat, mostly because I know a third party has as much chance of national success as hell's hockey team in the Olympics, but after the corporate mouthpiece that Texas sent to Congress railed against the "shakedown" of BP, I think the Republican party is a lost cause.

So, Step 1: learn from the Republicans. There are two parts to this, the first being the formation of the party line and, um, inspiration for people to toe it. The Republican party is great at pulling ranks behind everything, which doesn't mean everybody needs to speak out in support of everything, but if you can't say something nice, shut the hell up. The more hard-core liberal branches of the party, particularly ones that are really into social issues just need to be assured that their issues will be treated with respect, but right now, there are more pressing issues, like getting people back to work, and the party would appreciate their support, but can the sabotage. People like Blanche Lincoln need to be told to support the President's initiatives, or don't count on party support come election time, period.

The second part is, stop giving the Republican spin machine ammunition. The Democratic party needs to re-brand itself (really, get back to its earlier position under FDR) as the party of working people, not unions, but middle-class working folks. They need to push reforms that would make things fair for regular people, get people back to work, make employers treat their people decently, make health care and insurance affordable, NATIONAL PAID MATERNITY LEAVE (seriously, IRAQ has more enlightened maternity policies than we do), and push the social issues (same-sex marriage and abortion) to the back burner. They can even pull a Republican and say they want to respect the rights of the states to make their own policies. The big reason I think there are so many red states in the South and midwest is because there really are some people here who will vote for the candidate who says what they want to hear about abortion, or marriage. Like the Kansas farmers who vote for the party that supports the very agribusiness machine that is putting the small family farm out of business, I really think some of them would vote for the second coming of Hitler if he said abortion was wrong. Some people don't listen to anything a candidate says, except for their pet issue. Sad, but true. No matter how reasonable the Democrats try to make that kind of social agenda, it's going to bite them every time, so don't go there. Quite frankly, I'm not nearly as concerned about either of those issues as I am about the fact that individual health insurance with a pregnancy rider could cost 25% of my annual income.