As we meander our way to April 15th, Americans who submit to the IRS are forced to look back over the last year and take stock of their financial lives. After trying to determine whether or not that hooker you picked up when you were really depressed counts as a medical expense, you might work your way through to your charitable giving receipts. I often think of charitable giving as my symbolic effort to be a part of a losing fight. I know the $15 I gave to America's Second Harvest isn't going to cure hunger in America, it won't even make a dent, but I feel like I should do something to register my sense that hunger in America is a problem.

Lately I've started to wonder if giving to the Democratic Party isn't my most charitible act of the past year. Will my $25 a month help Democrats stand up in the face of Repubilcans? Demonstrably no. Will my $25 a month encourage the party to focus on local elections to get a deeper bench going forward? Survery says No. Will my $25 pay for my part of the keg at the next "Please George, let me take my pants off first" party in D.C.? Well yeah!

What do we do? How do we take it back? What's wrong with us and right with them? How can we convince Americans that we have ideas too? Bill Bradley has some good thoughts about what they do right, and Mark Sheilds has some good ideas on what we do wrong, but I think it might be much more simple than that. What do you think? How can we do right by our friends and do wrong by our enemies? How can we take back America?