1. For better or worse, all movements need a leader... a central voice that crystallizes the aspirations and motivations of the base.  Elected Dems have not provided that single voice/leader.  This election, though its a midterm election, should be treated by elected Dems with the focus and marshalling of resources that would be invested in a presidential election.  Dems must capitalize on the "perfect storm" that exists at the moment.  To be more specific, Dems need to go as far as designating one person as being the spokesperson for the party -- and not undermine that voice.  For my money, I'd like to nominate Dean and Feingold as the voice of the party (of course, elected Dems will simply never accept this).

2. Some have started to move towards an draw down/pull back position on Iraq, elected Dems need to do more of that and speak with one voice on this issue.  The American public has turned soured on Bush's Iraq invasion, but an alternative to simply staying the course has not been coherently articulated.  It's clear that elected Dems are split on this issue on policy grounds, and not merely on the atmospheric's of the situation -- that is, I believe that some elected Dems do fear that a precipitous drawing down of troops would be bad over the long term; however, this group is not presenting an alternative to the current course, which simply unacceptable.  Because the base, and the American public, want to be presented with an alternative -- we know that staying the course simply will not do, but what's the alternative.  I support the Murtha plan, and Every. Single. Democrat. Should. Too.  It's good politics and good policy.

3. Ross Perot spent millions of dollars running what basically were infomercials during his '92 bid, which, to my mind, was the biggest thing to propel his insurgent candidacy in that election.  Dems need to do the same thing. Create half-hour or hour-long infomercials wherein that "single voice" of the party intimetly presents, in stark contrast, what the Democratic Party stands for and shows the American people how Democrats will do better.  The key of these long-verions commercials is that Dems would control the message, with no moderator to interrupt with their pretense at objectivity.  Moreover, the long-version commercials (half hour to an hour) would facilitate an adult discussion -- I think that Americans want to be addressed as adults, and not in the 20 second sound bites that address voters as children.

It's real simple. (tongue in cheek)

The democratic base is more fractured then the gop base. what gets african-americans to turnout in droves is different from what will get pro-choice single women to turnout or culturally-mixed union members to show up in force.

Basically, there's got to be a coordinated effort to pound away on a few critical groups' "anger points."  In 2006, for african-americans that may be residual anger over Katrina. For single women, it could be south dakota (although the recent changes in the USSC have made appealing to this base constituency a more difficult challenge).

Necessarily, connecting with a few groups' anger points will alienate other parts of the base. If you're to rally the base sucessfully, you're going to have to accept those consequences.

Another factor is that Democratic electeds like to think of themselves as the nice/good guys. That's gotta change. Gotta be willing to play on people's fears and jealousies. Again, it's the only way that "rallying the base" has ever worked. GOP electeds have no compunction about tapping into the darker human emotions. While I don't advocate it as a default position, Dems should at least have that "driver" somewhere on their hard drive in case they need to go that route.