So, why am I taking this little trip down memory lane of which most of you are all too well aware and need need no reminding? Because we are very possibly going to win this election and you can very confidently place a large bet in Las Vegas that the cries to end the partisanship will be deafening. I have little doubt that the entire Washington press corps is gearing up for a full scale vapor-fest if the Democrats attempt to demand even the slightest bit of accountability for the past six years of corruption and failure. The Democrats have to accept that they will once again be fighting the entire political establishment.

You can see the outlines already. Time's cover this week features Barack Obama, the latest empty receptacle of establishment bipartisan wishful thinking:

Obama's actual speaking style is quietly conversational, low in rhetoric-saturated fat; there is no harrumph to him. About halfway through the hour-long meeting, a middle-aged man stands up and says what seems to be on everyone's mind, with appropriate passion: "Congress hasn't done a damn thing this year. I'm tired of the politicians blaming each other. We should throw them all out and start over!"

"Including me?" the Senator asks.

A chorus of n-o-o-o-s. "Not you," the man says. "You're brand new." Obama wanders into a casual disquisition about the sluggish nature of democracy. The answer is not even remotely a standard, pretaped political response. He moves through some fairly arcane turf, talking about how political gerrymandering has led to a generation of politicians who come from safe districts where they don't have to consider the other side of the debate, which has made compromise--and therefore legislative progress--more difficult. "That's why I favored Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal last year, a nonpartisan commission to draw the congressional-district maps in California. Too bad it lost."

This will, I predict, be the latest fad: bipartisan nothingness. Now that the Republicans have successfully moved the political center so far to the right that they drove themselves over the cliff, we must stop all this "partisan bickering" as if the Democrats have been equally partisan and therefore can ask for and expect the right to meet them halfway, which they never, ever do. That means we must let their most heinous ideas congeal into conventional wisdom, let their criminal behavior go unpunished, clean up the global disaster they've created, do the heavy lifting to fix the deficit they caused. While we're fixing things, they'll count their ill-gotten gains, catch their breath and gear up to trash the place all over again.

Modern bipartisanship can be simply defined as Democrats repeatedly getting taken to the cleaners by Republicans. Until the rules of the game are changed it will remain so whether Democrats are in the majority or not. That pathetic Charlie Brown with the football ritual is what Joe Lieberman is running on and what Joe Klein is angling for with his Blankslate Obama love-fest. (Norquist called it date rape but that's too kind -- the Liebermans and Kleins love being in the spotlight giving wingnuts lapdances. They enjoy every minute of their rightwing orgy --- they just don't want to take responsibility when they turn up with wingnut transmitted diseases.)

It is going to take some deft media management and skillfull legislative action to stop this pattern, but stop it we must. We have had more than two decades to assess this and this is how the conservative movement works. You can almost feel the relief (and even the glee) in some of the recent right wing claims that losing will be good for the party.

Ok, Digby lays out the problem, but really offers little in the way of answers. I have a few guidelines.

(1)Start with the most popular programs that Republicans have sought to stymie.

For example, stem cell research. For another example, the minimum wage. Not only will this be smart politics, it will be good policy. If Republicans want to continue to fight on this ground, well 2008 will look pretty darn good.

Other options: port security, electoral reform, FEMA.

(2) On Iraq, start with accountability,  NOT plans. Demand answers. Do not start with solutions. Demand victory plans, not exit plans.

Now this second piece of advice is entirely cynical yet I believe principled. Bush remains the President. The Congress can not, per se, force redeployment. But it can demand a victory plan that calls for early redployment. And if Democrats are successful, the day when we can declare victory and get out will arrive sooner than if the Dems roll out a plan first.

(3) Do be prepared for a titanic fight - the Supreme Court if Stevens leaves us. That one must be fought, for the sake of the country our values AND for politics' sake. The base demands it. Rightly so. Dems must fight on this monumental issue or lose their base. There is no other choice.

My bits of advice should a miracle happen and Dems win the Congress.