It seems to me in that in each election, you're allowed one positive theme and one negative theme. And your theme needs to be really simple, it needs to be credible, and it needs to be repeated 50 million times.

In 2004, George Bush's one positive theme was "leadership", his negative theme was "flip-flopper". in 1992, Clinton's negative theme was "out of touch", his positive theme was "change".

What should be the Democrat's 1 positive & 1 negative theme in 2006?

For a negative theme, here are some words which fit the W: clueless, corrupt, arrogant, incompetent, careless, ineffective, out-of-control. How about "corrupt, clueless & out of control"?  Or "can't get the job done"?

For a positive theme, how about "saving lives"? Vote Democrat because together, united, we'll save & improve lives. With health care, better foreign policy, jobs, education, environment, better abortion policy, etc.

Another positive theme might be "future" or "long-term", which stems from the fact that most of Bush's policies involve cannabalizing the future in order to keep the party going for the conservative elites in the present.

More important than any particular theme or strategy, of course, is executing that strategy. The most interesting idea for me re: grassroots are the plans to build the party's organization around precints and precinct captains. But I don't really have much to add about all that.