The Most Important Thing For Democrats To Do:

The handsome face of our current Majority Leader.

Keep House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Sugarland) in power. The guy is a jerk and a crook and he is too arrogant to listen to advice. He'll do anything to stay in power. Delay is willing to put himself before party and principles and is either too blind or too selfish to care that he is harming the Republicans. The best part of the whole deal for Dems is simply this: he makes himself look and sound like a criminal asshole. You don't have to sell the nation on the idea that he's a crook; the more he talks, the more he will do it for you.

The irony of the cockroach like behavior of Rep. Delay is that his previous career was as a pest exterminator. He learned his trade well and is applying in politics the same skills he used then. Squash opposition with direct force whenever possible. When impossible, bait traps with poisons and scatter them willy nilly about the Capitol. Leave a trail of toxins and bodies wherever you go. I don't think Tom Delay knows what positive motivation is; this man is a pure thug through and through and his only way of relating to people is through threats and intimidation.

Even more ironic is the hubris involved. Maybe Delay does not remember how Republicans started to gain power. How Democrats used to have a majority in the house and senate and how they abused that. There was a guy named Jim Wright, he was Speaker of the House and he used his position to enrich himself and his friends illegally. He believed he was above the law. Guess what? Republicans, sick of the corruption brought him down. They chipped away at him until he fell.

At that time the Republicans were out of power. They were a lean fighting machine; building the necessary coalitions and strategies to take the House and Senate. They did things like not renting appartments in DC and sleeping on cots in their offices; this was a visible demonstration of how they were saving taxpayers money and staying in touch with their district. These guys were not going to be Washingtonized. They were going to stay conservative, in touch with their roots, independant and unowned by PACS and special interests.

Fast forward to the present and what do you have? A Republican party, drunk with power, acting as a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil, banking and investment industries. All those things Democrats did to piss off voters? They're doing the same things and in the same arrogant manner. Oh, the dancers are different but the music is the same.

Meanwhile, the Dems are out of power and doing what the Republicans did: strategizing and building coalitions. Maybe in ten years we'll have a Democratic majority.

But don't get too upset about that possibility, my dear conservative friends. Even if that happens, we'll go back to doing the same thing and you'll have the majority in twenty or thirty years. Lather, rinse, repeat. As far as I can tell this has been going on since Washington was accused of being a a supporter of monarchy and Jefferson was accused (correctly) of sleeping with a slave.

So, the longer Democrats can keep Delay in power, the longer we will have a poster boy for corruption. So I say, leave him be; give him the all rope he needs. He's knotting himself a truly beautiful noose.