Thomas Geoghegan (author of the brilliant Which Side Are You On: Trying To Be For Labor When It's Flat On Its Back) calls for the Democrats to govern from the blue states:

John Kennedy and the old Democrats did not have to be so direct. Labor could decode them. Kennedy could say, "I'm for labor," and people knew that by electing Kennedy, labor would turn that simple statement into cash. But now we have to be more explicit. We have to tell people in a simpler way: Here is how you get the dough. We can try a new, direct approach, to help us govern in the Blue States. So we can begin with three months' paid maternity leave. Oh yes, be sure to say: We will give assistance to small business. Then maybe, after a while, go to paid maternity leave of four months. Same with vacation. Let's start with seven days. Then maybe go to ten. And what will the GOP say, No? Let them say no. Let the Heritage Foundation scream. We want the screaming so loud, it wakes up people in the pews. Let the Republicans go to the voters and say no. Let's have a big, noisy battle in every one of the Blue States. I can hardly wait. Over the years, the Democrats have become terrified to put anything in the platform, because the GOP will add up the numbers and say, "This will cost $10 trillion." So, terrified, we put little in the platform. We think we're being smart. We aren't giving any targets. But it also means we have nothing to hand out. No maternity leave. No severance. No vacation. And that's why, if we start governing from the Blue States, we ought to do it with a platform: "Here's the minimum, here's what we want, in every state." The idea is, we want to make ourselves a target. We want people in the Red States to see what we are doing. And if we start governing in the Blue States in this way, we'll begin to show people what they miss by living in the Red States: paid maternity leave, vacation time, family time. Just to promise a direct payoff of this kind is a whole new way of appealing to people's economic interests. It is much, much more direct than anything the Democrats have ever tried. But it's not enough just to make the promise in a speech, or even to put it in a platform. From now on, whenever possible, we have to put these payoffs on the ballot. Let's plan, now, for 2006. In every Blue State, we should have each new benefit, separately, with a separate box, on the voter's Blue State ballot. Paid maternity leave. Paid vacation. Paid sick leave. Real severance pay.