I'd invite Mr. Goldberg – or anyone else – to poll those positions, and find out how well they do. Not just in the Democratic Party, but in the party has a whole. The beltway zeitgeist that what American needs after 30 years of reactionary Republicans and conservative Democrats is a conservative Democrat to clean up the mess so that we can have another reactionary Republican lurch America yet farther to the right in 2012 or 2016 – simply does not make sense given the hard numbers that the polls have.

The problem with the Democratic Party and the White House isn't a matter of positions, but a matter of stance. The American people want out of Iraq, they want a different economic course and a different structure to the economy. The faster home prices drop, the less attached to the current order they become. When gas was cheap and homes were dear, people were willing to go along. Now, they poll heavily on the description of America, being on the "wrong track".

This means that the salient fact isn't liberal/conservative identification, it is right track/wrong track. The Republican Congress needs to convince a third of the people who believe America is on the wrong track to vote for the status quo. That is, they have to sell the idea that the only thing wrong with America is that people have too much access to health care, and are expecting too much from Social Security. There simply aren't that many people who believe that God is punishing America for allowing homosexuals to marry in three states.

The individual who offers the most incisive comment is possible Republican Presidential candidate – Newt Gingrich. His advice to the Democrats was to run on "Had Enough?" Given that a swath of Democratic activists have adopted "Enough is Enough" as the informal slogan of this campaign – it isn't coming completely from right field.

The challenge – as presidential scholar Wilentz notes, is that to revive a Democratic grand coalition, requires someone who can do it. It should be noted that in 1930 the Democrats muddled out gains, simply because the economy had already begun sinking like a stone, but they did not have a clear idea of what they were too do. That Congress produced "Smoot Hawley" and a house that fiddled with intentions without ideas.

However, for all of its faults, that Congress served as the springboard to FDR's electoral existence, because it meant that FDR's coattails needed to give him a strong working majority, and not merely a bankshot play for a merely numerical one.

Thus we are treated to a very one sided article that is a paean to one particular viewpoint, that of "the swingers". The swingers believe that the focus should be on the most stupid 1% of the electorate that votes, but is only marginally attached to the political system. The friends of people who barely pay attention to politics, but can be mobilized by peer pressure. It's led to the longest losing streak for the Democrats in Congress since the 1920's – but once again is demanding complete control of the party. Dean's rise is, to no small extent, the result of a mounting frustration, not just among adherents, but by state party committees – with this "media bomb the battlegrounds" approach. As in Vietnam, just dropping bombs hasn't done the trick, so the top downers want to drop more bombs.

And this is one of the key issues that Goldberg looks at, and then side steps – the internal contradiction of the swinger electoral strategy. On the one hand Rahm Emmanuel criticizes Dean for putting money all over the map – and on the other hand, moderate patron saint Warner attacks the notion of a "16 State Strategy" – hoping for a "triple bankshot" win in Ohio or Florida. Which is it? Are elections won by "opening up new areas of the country" or in pouring resources into swing areas. If Holding the base and attacking into Florida and Ohio is bad for Kerry, why is attacking only into close swing districts in 2008 good for Emmanuel?

Arrayed against the swingers, are those who seek a transformation by building a movement. The builders look at the swingers failure, and wonder why it is media consultants demand that the party and the movement spend all of the available money every election cycle on ads whose effects are, to use a Keatsian phrase, writ on water. The progressive side of the ledger has a coherent idea, namely, to turn a nation that is split 20-50-30 Liberal-Moderate Conservative, to one that is split 30-50-20 Progresive/Centrist/Reactionary. All three words are important. The key to this conversion is to talk to the third of people who are "modetate" on the 1960's division of the country, but who fee a growing frustration with business as usual. These people are not part of the party's metropolitan or near metropolitan base, they are found in rural areas hit by the price of gasoline, and pressures from immigration and lack of basic industry.

The "swing" strategy pays a great deal more attention to a group of people who are both farther away from the Democratic Party base, and who are harder to persuade of the need for transformation, easier to drift on hot button issues, and, vote for vote, far more expensive. Than the progressive moderates.

However, going after either group involves what could be called "pain" and not optional pain.

The reasons for this are two fold, the people who are most likely to go over to being full time progressives are represented, on the whole, by the individual politicians who have made more of a career out of bashing the base than most. The paradigmatic example is Joe Lieberman. Taking out a few cardinal moments, and Joe Lieberman is a progressive – and even on many occasions a Liberal. The Department of Homeland Security is a big government liberal approach.

However the asides are large, and the reasons for this are obvious politically: first, he must hold onto a large sliver of votes who have to have passionate differentiation from politicians who are "left" of Lieberman. Secondly, his state consists of people who are connected with the metro-economy, but do not want to live in the metropolis itself. For these reasons, the intensity of identification must be stronger. As a result, Lieberman has made himself "George Bush's favorite democrat". Even though, for example, Ben Nelson of Nebraska is much more conservative than Lieberman is.

But Lieberman represents the left flank of the moderates who are ready to bolt from George Bush. More important to progressive aspirations are the moderate 6 of the North east – Specter, Collins, Snowe, Chaffee, DeWine and Voinavich. Voinavich and Specter survived challenges in 2004 – protected by the wave of stasis in the country – DeWine and Chaffee face challenges this year, along with the probable defeat of Santorum by Conservative Democrat Bob Casey.

And it is in Casey that we see the difference between the two strategies and their effects. Casey, a dynasty politician had no effective opposition in the primary, even though he is against key issues that the base supports – possible challengers were cleared out. It is not that the DSCC needed to nominate a conservative to win the race in Pennsylvania – it is that it is cheaper to do so, and that is seen by the swing strategy moderates as freeing up resources for other races. In the swing moderate strategy, getting two Senators who will often vote against the party, is much better than getting one that will always vote with the party. Conservative Democrats, breed other conservative Democrats.

Lieberman, who is to the left of Casey, has a very serious challenge in Ned Lamont – it isn't that bloggers and internetizens were not willing to back a challenge to Casey in Pennsylvania, it is that local passions in Pennsylvania were not aroused by stopping Casey, where as the anger at Lieberman's neglecting of the party stalwarts in Connecticut was the powder on which ideological sparks fell. Even with credentialing out pro-Lamont delegates from Hartford, Leiberman had 30% of the delegates go against him. In some cases whole towns voted straight slate against Lieberman.

There in lies the difference – in Pennsylvania Democratic support is heavily concentrated in two cities, and a few patches around the capital. In Connecticut, there are Democrats everywhere. In PA, pay attention to the local base in two cities, and there is no possibility of revolt.

These two facts – that a more liberal sitting Senator has more opposition than a conservative nominee – and that part of the difference is that in one state there are Democrats everywhere, and in the other races are fought by piling up big margins in the cities, and then swinging key suburbs – define the conflict between the swing strategy moderates, and the transformation strategy progressives. To a moderate the base is a geographic fact, and the moderates are defined by hot button images that evoke the instability of the 1960's and early 1970's.

What this points to is that the swing moderates are thinking as old politics media politics. The race is about whatever CNN Headline News puts in tight rotation. Even in the case of Warner, who is billing himself as the first dot com presidential campaign, the question, in the end is hot button images, and geography. And when a swinger talks about geography, he means "the Sowth". Not the south, the Sowth. Bubbaland. It's not an authentic South, any more than DeLay, Gingrich or Bush are authentic southerners, but it is a south which has a highly stylized sense of its identity, which passes for authenticity.

The transformers – even though their strategy is as geographically based as the swinger's strategy, do not think of themselves as being located in a particular geographic place.

The transformers, if they are to have power at the party table, must win over the course of the next 6 years, the 8 seats which are the natural proof of the transformative thesis: that there are a wave of people willing to defect: Santorum, Lieberman, Chaffee, Collins, Snowe, DeWine, Specter and Voinavich.must be replaced by transformation progressives. They must also win in the region which would shatter the notion that the transformation progressives are merely angrier lefties with better websites.

This reach is the Rockies and the desert southwest ex-Utah and Idaho. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. Currently these states are home to some of the most conservative of Republicans, they are seen as being naturally conservative areas. But if one looks at the "red pole" of America – that band running parallel to the Mississippi, only 350 miles West from the Texas Border to Idaho – these states are not in that batch of counties where George W. Bush is still doing, as far as the locals are concerned, a good job.

The builders then see the Northeast as "the new South" the place where there will be a radical shift in party allegiance to a new ideology. They also see the super sunbelt – Robert David Sullivan's southern most presidential band in his influential article on Beyond Red and Blue.

The builders see the challenge as taking the presidential dominance in the Upper Coasts region, the Great Lakes region and the Northeast Corridor, and translate that into Congressional dominance – meaning the flipping of a host of House seats and the core Senate Seats. Added to this is making inroads in Northern Virginia which is beginning to creep into the Northeast Corridor, and tactical assaults into the Southern Lowlands. But most importantly, it means welding El Norte into the Democratic Presidential and Congressional Coalition.

In this world view – the attacks into the areas of Republican dominance – even into core Republican areas like Southern Comfort and Sagebrush, are not diversions which waste money, but key to the concept of making it so that the Republicans, rather than the Democrats, enter every election with a defensive mindset, thinking about how to protect their candidates from the Democratic line of attack. By pressuring even the Republican base - it places elections outside of the Republican advantage in money.

A large part of the reason for this is not merely that the Republicans have the money advantage, but because the Republicans, as keepers of the pork, are able to marshal the resources of the Defense Department and other federal apparatus to bomb real money, not just media money, on marginal races. They did it successfully in 2002 and 2004 – and are going to try and do it again in 2006.

The builder's moderates are not Southern anti-cosmopolitan voters, but

With a geographic base of Upper Coasts, Great Lakes, Big River, Northeast Corridor and El Norte – the Democrats will begin with a larger base of electoral votes than the Republicans, and have more places to attack. The key to the workability of this strategy is to shift Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada into the "toss up, leans Democrat" colum from the Republican to toss up leans Republican categories – and most importantly, flipping Ohio into the Presidential coalition. The key to Republican victory since 1988, as been the shifting of Texas to being the anchor man of the Republican coalition. By shifting Ohio to the Democrats, the net value of Texas is limited – instead of a huge block of electoral votes, money, candidates, and ethos – all rolled into one, the Republican Party is the Texas Party – the Republicans will have traded Texas for the rest of the old North, and for the hot southern rim of the country.

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This leads to two fundamentally different futures. The builders see the Party's base as being people with aspirations to a better life, while the swingers see the base as being people who have no choice but to vote to protect ever eroding programs and rights. The swingers tell the base "vote for us, serfs, or it is so much the worse for you." In the world of apocalyptic direct mail appeals, and media bombing of the guns, gays and god crowd with the latest big government bribe – the base is something to be attacked in order to get swing votes. Trade 10 base votes in New York for one precious one in North Carolina or Virginia.

The sign is that institutionally, the swingers are winning the battle to be the institutional party. One indicator of this is that Hillary Clinton is the hands down favorite to be the Democratic nominee – and that Mark Warner is the hands down favorite to be the Vice Presidential nominee. Warner's candidacy contains a second proof – Jerome Armstrong's joining of his campaign team to reach out to the "net roots". Warner, with enough money is trying to coöpt both a center of anti-Hillary sentiment – according to polls 12% of all Democrats see Hillary unfavorably, but the proportion in the electronic space is much larger – and to establish that if she wants to have swinger credibility, she has to make him the Vice Presidential nominee, and thus the front runner in 2012 should she lose.

Warner then can tell Hillary that if she wants a crack at the South - particularly the possibly in play Arkansas, Virginia and North Carolina electoral votes - she has to come to him. And if she wants to quell the rebellion on her flank, she has to come to him.

However, it is not clear whether this strategy is going to be enough – the builders have been unhappy with personnel in the Democratic Party, but they are not solely about candidates. Instead, the very steps that a swinger party wants to take – emphasize the Democratic Party as a service delivery party – are exactly what the builders don't agree with.

The builders, however, need a candidate. The road to builder candidacy is a realization among "The Big Five" of unHillary candidates – Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Clark and Feingold – that as five candidates they are fighting over 40% of the vote, and cannot conceivably beat Hillary's base of 40% - with 10% due to head to the right flanking VP candidate, of whom Warner is going to clobber Biden and Dodd who are currently in that pool.

With an agreement among the big five to choose one of them as the candidate – by, for example, agreeing to have a series of "preprimary" internet tests which will determine which is given the chance to be the standard bearer – and a decision that they must gut Hillary early and establish the builder ethos as their own – the 2008 race becomes interesting, because at that point Hillary is squeezed. On the right Warner will eat into the South, blocking Hillary from rolling up early victories, on the left, she will get hammered on the war, budgets and basic bread and butter civil libertarian issues. Warner will have an incentive to keep hammering Hillary, because the builder candidate will need him as much, if not more, than Hillary does.

In the general election, with a builder running against McCain, the circumstances are different. Rather than being the last television election between two well known media brands, it will be McCain's television brand, against the builder's electronic one. And McCain can be beaten at close quarters, because he is personally brittle and can be cracked. Hillary can't crack McCain on television, in no small part because she, like him, is a brittle television personality.

So in the end, the future comes down to whether the builders get a chance to flip the left most moderates into a permanent stance as progressives, or whether the swingers get their way and spend millions, again, convincing a few people that they hate the Republicans a little more than they fear the Democrats.