• Is the candidate taller than the likely candidate for the other side?



• Do people feel comfortable with the candidate, would they want to bring him or her home and sit down and watch a game and drink some beers.



• Does the candidate look like a President?



• But more importantly: Is the candidate good looking?

Context is important, of course: if the opposition candidate is a complete dud, you can field someone against him who isn't ideal -- but if they put up someone who fulfills these basic superficial requirements, you've got to have someone who does it better, regardless of whether the person's an airhead or not. (After all, if they're going to elect an airhead, isn't it better that they elect our airhead?)

I've been saying this for a while -- we've got to stop picking candidates on the basis of wonkish criteria, and seriously start casting our President. If we can't do the job, call in some folks from Hollywood to help. A good casting director knows the difference between someone who "reads" Presidential and someone who doesn't, and, given that they make those kind of discriminations hundreds of times a day, they should be able to tell us quite quickly which ones of our potential candidates have a shot. (We don't have to use an already-minted celebrity, as long as the person has celebrity-like qualities.)

So, while Chris Bowers is doing the heaving lifting in figuring out how to make 2006 a change election, I've come up with two ideas which I think are essential to keep in mind for 2008:

• Avoid Senators, but Governors are OK.



• Pick our candidate as if we were casting the role of President

I'm serious here, we can't afford to lose in 2008, which means we can't afford to do things the old way -- it don't work.