I've heard the same thing from Reid and others. "Why come up with proposals when we can't push them through anyway?"

None of them have explained why their current political situation prevents them from coming up with policies and ideas to present to the American people with an election coming up. I suspect it's because the real reason they aren't presenting detailed ideas is because they don't have any.

It isn't that Democrats haven't "done" anything. It's that they haven't come up with any ideas. If they ever want to get back in power, they're going to have to come up with something besides "Bush sucks."

Note that Republicans weren't in power when the Contract With America was conceived, and hadn't been for many years.