From HWC attacking me on suggesting we can have a President who wins over 55% (which would be a realignment)

"It always amazes me that anyone who follows Presidential elections could suggest that the race will be anything but 50% - 50%, give or take 2%."

from Dem Dem "or are you on Peyote?  We will be very happy with 261 electoral votes and a plurality, thank you very much..."

I was just wondering what the Obama and Edwards folks thought about this idea?

"It's time to begin planning for a Democratic landslide election, and working to think through how to position progressive Democrats.  If we accept 'more Democrats' as a baseline assumption for 2008, we can work toward fulfilling the second half of the equation: electing better Democrats."

Yes! Yes! Yes!

That's it exactly.  And to do it, we have to aggressively build the party volunteer base NOW.  It's not too early to start canvassing for 2008, not for candidates, but for the party's general election nominees.  Really.  Watch NM turn a dark shade of blue in 11/08 when we elect a Democratic President, replace doddering Domenici, and finally  send Heather Weasel and her pederast husband back to whatever dark hole she crawled from.

I'm actually being perfectly serious when I say this.  Which Democrats do you think we should target for the Ned Lamont/Club for Growth treatment in the primaries?

I agree that it's very important to think in terms of winning a realigning election (which, historically, only happens in conjunction with 2 or more consecutive House wave elections).  It's not just important for us, it's important for beating up the M$M, too.  They need to be pounded over the head with this fact repeatedly from now until election day.

We know that they'll still write the same old crappy stories like they did after the 2006 election.  But we want them to know that they're just rightwing tools as they do so. And that's important because when they do, we need to be prepared to mount the mother of all push-backs.

We can't expect any kind of honeymoon period.  But we can expect to be fired up for one hell of a fight come January 2009.  And the media, not the GOP, will be our #1 enemy.

"If we accept 'more Democrats' as a baseline assumption for 2008, we can work toward fulfilling the second half of the equation: electing better Democrats"

The problem with the second half of that statement is we have front page bloggers saying we need to primary oust Democrats who voted the wrong way on a single bill.  The person who decides "Who we want to run" will probably be messing with our chances more than helping it based on poor qualifiers.  

The irony of these numbers coupled with Rove's "retirement" is quite extraordinary.

He got his permanent majority alright--a Democratic one.

presumably independents and disgusted republicans are looking for reasons that they could vote democratic. It would be best itf it was possible to give them the reasons...without of course alienating the actual democrats and progressives, being wishy-washy, or sacrificing progressive goals. An intelligent, non-threatening, inclusive dialog of progressivism is needed.

It is also worth noting in the potential of a landslide and the eventual reduction of the destructive impacts of the bush years and neocon influence (which aren't going away even if bush does...neither are the Federalists or xtian fundamentalists) that increasing the quantity of democrats will unavoidably result in increasing friction among democrats. Already it is clear that the destructive influence of so-called "Blue Dogs" needs to be overcome. A strategy of maintaining and moving forward a progressive agenda is needed.

All this means is that an overarching comprehensive progressive VISION of America and the means to attain it is needed.
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Minimum wage and lobbying reform aside, more needs to be done.

Republicans are being successful in painting this Congress in a bad way  - not getting things done - because all the focus is on the war votes and the attorney scandel, both areas where Republicans can stymie Democrats until kingdom come.  

We need to pass some more bread and butter legislation and I would hope there are 1 or 2 good wedge votes in store for the summer of '08.