If we've learned anything about the electoral process over the past two presidential elections, it should be that the party that controls the electoral process dictates the results or at the very least, has the ability to sway the process to the benefit of the office holder's party preference. We've seen this in the decision making regarding choice and allocation of technology and selection of vendors, in the (selective) enforcement of voter rights and regulations, and as it pertains to electoral re-counts.
The Secretary of State is an elected office and with few exceptions, have complete control of the voting process. You can examine the following link to see if your Secretary of State has such powers:
List of Secretaries of State
So with all the discussion of how we Democrats could have done better and what we should do next time, it strikes me that no one is talking about our needing to target the Secretary of State positions at the State level. Let's face it, the GOP has been perfecting the art of local and regional politics as both a means of grooming politicians, but also as a mechanism for developing and controlling platform issues at a much earlier stage of their development. The position of Secretary of State is but one example of these efforts. As a simple example at the local level, does anyone find it odd or even shocking that Texas schools can teach creationism and diminish the theory of evolution in its text books? The GOP and their ilk typically control the school boards that have voting control over what children read in text books and even what text books are ordered for the school systems. Unfortunately, the Texas market is so large and publishers don't want to be in the position of printing various regional versions, so they ultimately just print the one version adhering to the Texas market's specific needs and the many other states are "stuck" with creationism.
The point of all this, is that we need to be thinking much more in terms of local politics if we're to have any hope of success in 2008. This means that we need to be thinking about this NOW. The sooner that we examine the issues and are able to really target our resources and energy the better. We should be looking at the key states and when these offices are up for reelection. We should be identifying potential candidates and helping them to build support, platforms, war chests and name recognition now.