Tony, I'd suggest stepping back and looking at the political activity on the left-half going on outside formal party structures. I think it's a good thing to tone down the search for a Messiah to lead us out of the wilderness, and just do it ourselves. I see Democratic activists and some of the punditry outside the struture talking as much about how to reform the party as about how to beat the Republicans. Perfect! That's how it should be--the vacuum in the party means that for the first time in a long while the outcome of an election is going to reflect more the actual will of the people than a party agenda.

Or, like I said to Publius, in any case this year the "lesser-evil" dynamic will suffice. Americans are just naturally sick of the Republicans in power, and it didn't take any machinations by Democratic politicians to make it so (though the Right will, of course, deny that the outcome in any way reflects the popular will and could only have happened because the evil geniuses in the DNC pulled the strings...[snort] those bozos? Their very incompetence affirms the popular will).

Save your disgust for 2007 and use it for inspiration and motivation. We have that year to whip the Democrats into shape to be up for 2008. Don't look to the politicians to do it, we have to.