Exactly!

Great breakdown of how most Americans can actually qualify as political liberals and still yet think of themselves as conservatives. My big disagreement with the author is that Americans aren't aligned with the Democrats--in many cases, they are left of the Democrats. Here's a great quote:

Conservatives, after all, are dominating through superior marketing, not with better ideas or policies. However, because Democrats have failed to grasp the root of the problem, they have reacted to the growing conservative dominance by trying to fit into a more conservative mold. This wrong-headed response has played into the hands of conservatives.

I think that it's critical that liberals hold their nose and learn to "brand" themselves like conservatives do. While thoughtful analysis is naturally preferrable to soundbite-style "branding", it also comes off as obtuse in our soundbite driven world. And we're not gonna change anything being at the bottom of the heap. First get the power, then make the changes.
Of course, the reason our marketers suck is that we just don't have the cash. And we never will. Donating to the Republican party is making a business investment for the rich, and it generally pays off better than even the biggest stock market boom. We cannot waste time bemoaning that and take Spivak's advice and discover our advantages. And those big advantages are youth, energy and talent that the Republicans just don't have.
The Republicans know how important recruiting the young is. That's why they focus so much on the College Republicans and waste so much ink on the supposed super-liberalness on college campuses, the unfairness of racial minorities getting college spots that "belong" to whites, and the importance of controlling female sexual behavior while also defending men against being charged with sexual harassment and date rape, to best appeal to young men who feel like they are getting less than they are entitled to. But c'mon! That rhetoric doesn't really attract the brightest and most talented of young people. And everyone else hates the young Republicans--tap that energy.
Women are our strength, too, particularly young and single women. A simple move would be to make a real effort to make the top people in the party 50% female, branding ourselves visually as the female-friendly party. The Republicans could never compete with that. They just don't have enough women for it.
And, well, we're sexier. It's true! The Republicans know that sex appeal is important and so they dug and dug and the best they could come up with was ANN COULTER. We can totally do better than that. We're the party of John Kennedy! Most Americans practice one or another of the sexual behaviors that the Republicans are trying to supress or censor or whatever. The Democrats have gone conservative on this, afraid that they don't have a counter point to the "it's for the children" crap. Also, we haven't the guts to confront party members who are pro-censorship, like Al Gore. But the Republicans are kicking our ass by pretending liberals censor stuff for "political correctness". We need to turn that shit around and say that we are the party that believes that people can make decisions for themselves. Don't hold our noses and vaguely say that we are pro-choice. Make it specific--they want to take away your damn birth control pills. That will get the vote out.
This Air America station is a really good first step. I hope we can keep it up.