Building the plan...
0) Buy Howard some ice cream and thank him again. Eat some ice cream yourself!!!
1) Start comparing Iraq reconstruction timelines to Civil War Reconstruction and to the rebuilding of German society after WWII. The Texas State Seal includes the numbers 1876. That commemorates the post-reconstruction reactionary constitution, passed in 1876, which controls state gov't in Texas today.
2) Lobby for James Baker for Secretary of Defense and Lee Hamilton for Secretary of State. They've done their homework, and they know the Mideast. Robert Gates and Condaleeza Rice are Sovietologists who couldn't see the collapse of the Evil Empire. It was like they believed everything they read in Soviet Life. They are the wrong choices to handle complexity.
3) Push the Oregon election solution nationwide: vote by mail. Perhaps by funding it preferentially.
4) Intensify use of the web to bypass the MSM. Buy adwords. Put stuff out on the web first.
5) Hold regular refocusing meetings. Stay on target.
6) Start up the 2008 Red-to-Blue machine.
7) Fold the Apollo Alliance approach into an energy bill http://www.apolloalliance.org/
8) Find some role for Al Gore.
9) Pay attention to George Lakoff http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/...
10) Prepare to win the "Who Lost Iraq?" debate. Study French politics after they got kicked out of Algeria.
Study British politics after the partition of British India. Note that irritated Sindis are not setting off bombs in London these days. Note that the occupied and divided province of Kashmir is the irritant that keeps India and Pakistan at each other's throat.
Study the whole British experience in Iraq after WWI (http://www.globalpolicy.org/...) and start publicly drawing parallels. Over and over again.
11) Set up a shadow cabinet and start using it as such.
12) Unleash Mary Landrieu! (http://www.senatemajority.com/...)