The election is not even cold in the grave, and we must begin the process of setting the agenda. We should decide what actions need to be taken, where the appropriate venue of action is, and what our priorities are. What follows is my proposal for our political shopping list, in order of priority, including an explanation of where the action is to take place.
First and biggest priority: we have to counteract the right wing noise machine. To accomplish this will require many goals. Chief among these is to reform the Democratic party to improve message consistency and achieve, in the public mind, a coherent philosophy. I'm not one to say whose heads must roll, but roll they must. Next, we have to invest in the message infrastructure of think tanks and whatnot. Such not obviously partisan sources of information are important in their long term persuasive power because people are simply less guarded about them (as a side note: it would be nice if we could get conservative think tanks labeled as such, or even think tanks in general, to ruin the conservatives' investment, and to increase the persuasiveness of our own think tanks when they extol POV counter to what the accepted wisdom says a think tank would). Finally, we're going to need to aid in the spread of liberal media in whatever way we can. Investing, listening, word of mouth, calling stations to request programming. We must make a concerted effort to make sure that by the time our message is consistent, that we have a voice to say it with. All this is, fortunately, outside the realm of government, and should be easiest to implement because it doesn't require "reaching across the aisle." Note well, however, that we shouldn't count on the 527s being as they were in this last election - Bush II will likely push hard to get them neutered.
Second: I am personally suspicious of how different the vote counts are from the exit polls published on Slate in key states like OH and FL. Though we may not be able to contest the votes, by the very nature of the machines used, we must push hard for openness and layman verifiable accountability in the voting process. For those not familiar with this issue, I recommend BlackBoxVoting.org. This is an issue to be hammered away at, mostly locally but also nationally, in a steady and consistent manner if we want anything done about it. Leave out the theories of specific conspiracies, no matter how credible, because people will tend to ignore your whole message as partisan no matter how much common sense there is in having transparency in the polling process.
Third: the whole issue of striking voters from the rolls needs to be dealt with. For starters, instead of referring to them as felons, as if they were still in prison, refer to them as freed men. Some possible reforms to push for include: repealing the laws that strip freed men of their right to vote, watering down the laws by including ways for said freed to earn their right to vote back (eg public service), requiring that some kind of unique identifier, like a photo and physical description, be given to polling workers so that confusion about names is avoided, etc. I listed them in order of preference, and in reverse order in likelihood of passing in a conservative state. If the first cannot win, however, then push for both the second and third.
Fourth: we need to reform how we vote in order to make Naders moot in the future. The most effective way of doing that is by pushing for approval voting. The short explanation is this: vote for everyone you would approve of holding the position. This way, there's no such thing as a thrown away vote, so we don't have to care who else is on the ballot, as long as the voters know to vote for our guy. The benefits of such a system are many - including giving stronger disincentive for the negative campaigning Republicans thrive on - and it opens up new ways for the system to be gamed while closing others. This should prove to be no more of a problem than the present system is, I think. This is one to push for at the state level, since that is where our voting laws are primarily set.
There is much more that can be said on all of these topics, I'm sure, but these are what strike me as most pressing in returning balance to the system.
BlackGriffen