Toward the end of last night’s Drinking Liberally meeting, I talked to two ’60s-generation defenders who said protesting could have results. I said protesting wasn’t enough, then eased into my next question: What are leftists today FOR? And I don’t just mean being in favor of being against things. What’s our agenda, beyond stopping the other guys’ agenda? They had no good answers.

With what would we replace the DC culture of corruption? Bush, as everyone who doesn’t watch Fox “News” knows, is merely the transparently incompetent figurehead atop a whole all-encompassing machine of bribery, influence-peddling, warmongering, and the crass exploitation of bigotry and fear. Impeaching Bush alone, or even Bush and Cheney as a team, would only bring new figureheads to deliver the sound bites.

The DLC “centrist” Democrats see no future for the Democratic Party as an organization without corporate money, so they willingly take a donor-chosen role of the all-too-loyal opposition.

The Northwest Democrats and the other progressives around the country? Protesting, marching, sporting angry T-shirts and bumper stickers, staging symbolic acts of dissent like the futile Alito filibuster.

And blogging. And talking at meetups.

At least the bloggers are constantly unearthing and disseminating new damning evidence of the Sleaze Machine’s nefarious actions, and occasionally get the bigtime media to acknowledge this evidence’s existence.

But there’s still damn little discussion on what we’d do instead, aside from not doing most of what the Republicans are doing.

So I ask all of you: Imagine progressive Dems (not just near-right Dems) stand a highly realistic chance of retaking Congress this fall and the White House two falls from now. (I happen to believe this is possible, especially if state-level progressives in certain “battleground states” push through some needed electoral reforms.)

Next, imagine you’re hard at work in some campaign strategy office, trying to make this dream come true. The opinion surveys keep coming back with one public demand: What’s your platform? The kind folk out there in swing-voter-land want to know what you’ll do. Not just what you won’t do, but what you will do.

Now tell us your answers.