How democrats could have won: three ideas that might have changed the election.

• Author: Glastris, Paul

HOURS AFTER THE POLLS CLOSED last month, a rough consensus emerged on why the Democrats got shellacked: They had no message. They had tried to pin the blame for a weak economy on the GOP, but offered no alternative economic plan of their own. They had criticized the administration's fiscal irresponsibility, but didn't call for repeal of the president's tax cuts, for which many Democrats had voted. They had talked incessantly about their new prescription-drug plan for seniors, but found that voters couldn't distinguish between their plan and the Republicans'. The "no message" critique was neatly summed up by Frank Rich in The New York Times: "A unified vision composed of actual policies and principles, as opposed to knee-jerk liberal sloganeering, cynical political strategies and anti-Bush whining, is now required."

Well said. So, Frank, got any ideas? Apparently not, at least none that he chose to share with his readers. Pretty much every other pundit in America responded the same way: with contempt for the Democrats' message, but without saying precisely what a winning alternative message might have looked like. My colleague Jonathan Rowe once commented that we journalists have the moral courage of snipers: We take pot shots from a position in which we can't be hit back. Then we wonder why the American people hate us.

So, in the interests of full exposure, here are three ideas which, had the Democrats run on them, might have made a real difference at the polls.

Tax cuts for everybody now, rather than for the rich later.

The vast majority of Democratic lawmakers no doubt think last year's $1.35-trillion tax cut was an abomination--especially the elimination of the estate tax, a $740 billion gift to the idle children of billionaires. One suspects this to be true even of a number of the Democratic senators from conservative states who voted for it. But had the party campaigned on a platform of rescinding the tax cut, there would probably be 40 Democrats in the senate today rather than 48. This disconnect between what Democrats believe in their hearts on taxes and what they said--or didn't say--to survive politically is probably the single biggest reason why the party seems soulless and adrift.

But there was a way out of this dilemma, one tied to the only victory Democrats have won on taxes over the last two years. Recall that while Senate Democrats didn't have the votes to block the president's tax bill, those who ultimately did vote for it were able, by teaming up with moderate Republicans, to shift some of the cuts away from future rate reductions for the rich to immediate tax rebates for average...