Solutions... Oh We Have Solutions

Arianna Huffington offers her fixes for regaining control of Congress (snippet):

....For starters, they need to make sure that there is never another election held with electronic voting machines that don’t leave a paper trail, or voter suppression caused by long lines and not enough polling places in poor neighborhoods. Next, they should — to paraphrase Shakespeare — kill all the consultants (and, while they’re at it, do away with the bullheaded pollsters, too). The Party needs to find and develop campaign teams that can run winning races in the 21st century, not keep rehiring the same professional losers election after election. Shouldn’t there be an “eight strikes and you’re out” rule? Democrats also need to retool their party infrastructure. Conservatives have spent the better part of the last 30 years building a potent message machine — a network of think tanks, policy centers and media outlets — that spends more than $300 million a year to promote its agenda. Instead of sitting around complaining that the big, bad GOP has them overmatched, Democrats need to open their wallets and build their own well-funded message machine. A key part of this apparatus will inevitably be the Internet, which must now assume a central role in all Party efforts. One of the underreported achievements of the Kerry campaign was its startling success in Internet fund-raising, taking in over $82 million in online donations. This same combination of cyber-savvy and sophisticated marketing must be used to help Democrats spread their message and build citizen participation. To do this, Democrats have got to nationalize the 2006 Congressional races — just as Republicans did in ’94. They don’t necessarily need their own version of the Contract with America, but they do need to make their stands on the crucial political battles of the day — including taxes, the environment, the war in Iraq, Social Security and the Supreme Court — part of a larger narrative and not just a laundry list of policy positions and four-point plans. And, finally, Democrats need to forge ahead with nascent efforts to recruit, train and fund a better crop of candidates. As one film-director friend of mine put it: “It’s ultimately about casting; I’m tired of voting for some guy who isn’t right for the role but got the part anyway.” ....

Yes, we need to secure, retool, find and develop, open and rebuild, nationalize, and forge ahead. My response: HOW? WHO? WHEN? and WHERE?