The tide is finally turning for Democrats. They stand on the verge of making a HUGE comeback in national politics, gaining control of the House of Representatives and possibly even of the Senate, thanks to the current Republican regime that is doing such a lousy job of running this nation.

It’s a shame that it has taken so many things for people to wake up- the horrible mismanagement of the Afghanistan war, the “hunt” for Osama and the 9/11 masterminds, the power grab by the executive branch, the changing economy with little done to help out the middle class, the federal budget train wreck, the attempt to kill Social Security, the continually-getting-worse Iraq war, the blatant sell-out to the lobbyists and influence merchants (and crooks and thieves) in Congress, the disgusting neglect of our fellow Americans in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the theft of the 2004 election, the deliberate outing for political gain of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and now the sex scandal and apparent coverup by the House Republican leadership.

It’s a REAL shame that it took this last thing to really crystalize the nation’s growing dissatisfaction with the Republicans, but I’ll take it. Personally, I went over the edge a while back, when it became 100% clear that the Bush Administration outed Plame intentionally for political gain. That’s when I went from thinking that Bush wasn’t just a horrible President, but one that deserved to be impeached. Up to that point, I figured his policies were horrible, that his Administration would be seen as a disaster for America, but they were policy choices, not criminal.

But many people take much more to convince them than that, and they’re only now apparently crystallizing around the idea that Bush’s policies are bad. (They’ll probably never give a crap enough to see the guy impeached, which is a shame- he and Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. should be made to answer for their crimes.)

So my fervent hope now is that the Democrats don’t dick this up.

I’ve written before about how they need to have a central set of positions that they stand for. Really, when you strip down a lot of Democratic policy positions, they’re common-sense. Despite what the Republicans want people to think, Democrats are not in favor of killing babies; they’re in favor of the government staying out of a woman’s body and leaving the decision about abortion up to her. They’re not in favor of “letting the terrorists attack before we do anything”; they’re just not in favor of junking the Constitution and doing illegal, warrantless searches in violation of existing law.

Democrats ARE in favor of a balanced budget. They want a strong military that can defend us, and they want to have it such that if and when we do go to war, we do so with overwhelming force that can make it as quick as possible. They believe that we need to prepare for the aftermath of war, and to have a plan for what we’re going to do in that case. They want reasonable foreign relations that manage to keep the United States as a member in good standing of the international community.

Democrats believe in free trade but not to the point where that trade exploits or harms other people, and they also believe that we need to focus on helping our OWN people react and deal with the changes that trade brings. They support retraining and schooling. They support the middle class. Democrats don’t think that the Paris Hiltons of the world deserve to be born into fabulous wealth and given benefits far beyond what any mortal needs; they think that a family should be able to protect a reasonable amount of wealth in an estate, and then after that the estate should be taxed so that we don’t wind up with an American aristocracy.

Democrats believe in good schools that are open to all, not private schools that only the rich have access to. Democrats believe that government can be a force for good in the world, but they’ve come to realize that it cannot solve all problems. Democrats believe instead that the government can help people to solve their OWN problems, but that at times folks just can’t do it all on their own.

Democrats need to make these opinions known. They need to have a common manifesto, if you will, of ideas and core values. One of the most brilliant moves in American politics was the Republican’s “Contract With America” prior to the 1994 elections; they pared issues down to a core and said “this is what we stand for”.

(Of course, being Republicans, they were hypocrites about many of those stances; for example, they claimed they wanted term limits, but that proposal failed. They claimed they wanted a balanced budget, but they’ve been in charge of Congress and the White House for almost 6 years and haven’t managed that one yet.)

Luis, over at Blogd, has written about this as well (in between his almost-incoherent ranting about how Macs rule and PCs drool- he’s just got mouse-button-envy, ignore those posts) and how Nancy Pelosi has come forward and laid out a Democratic agenda.

I’m not much of a Pelosi fan- I think she’s a bad face for the House Democrats to put forth as their representative, if you will, to America- but she got that one right. The issues she picked are real things that will help real Americans, like bumping up the minimum wage (long overdue) or helping people afford college or making America safer by enacting the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

So for right now, the Democrats need to do something that’s kind of un-Democratic; they need to go for the kill. They need to finish this election season strong, strong, strong, and need to take back the Congress. They need to ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK the Republicans; they need to state their core ideals; and then, if and when they win, they need to not dick it up.

They need to remember, seriously remember, just how corrupt they got when they were in charge of Congress. Not as bad as the Republicans have been, true, but they still had their overly-strong lobbyist-legislator connections. They need to build upon their victories. They need to make a strong stand for the American worker without completely giving away the store to the special interests (and I’m saying this even as a strong union supporter- but even unions shouldn’t get EVERYTHING we would ask for).

They need, in short, to not dick it up.

Hopefully the advent of the blogosphere and online communications gives people more of a medium to fight back against the huge corporate interests that will move in as quickly as possible to stake their claim in a new Congress. More people need to read rants like mine, and Luis‘, and those on DailyKos. They need to inform themselves with sources like TalkingPointsMemo.

I say “they”, but I’m really talking to YOU, Dear Reader. YOU need to do something. Even if it’s not much more than occasionally taking one thought away from these kind of blogs and bringing it up from time to time in daily conversation. You need to occasionally open up your wallet and pull out the credit card and donate to a political campaign for a candidate mentioned here or there. Even ten bucks makes a difference; if I get 100 readers in a week and each donates ten bucks to someone, well, that’s a couple of radio ads for that person.

So not only do the Democrats have the challenge of not dicking it up, but so do you and I.

Let’s give it a whirl, shall we?