A POSSIBLE WAY FORWARD, WHICH WILL PROBABLY BE IGNORED BY OUR SIDE

Well, this gives me hope:

Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.

The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits....

Overall statewide turnout was expected to be around 60 percent of Oregon's 2 million voters.

Campaign ads by supporters highlighted banks and credit card companies and showed images of well-dressed people stepping off private jets. They also hammered on the $10 minimum tax that most corporations have paid since its inception in 1931....

According to an Oregon commenter in my (abortive) resignation thread, "There was a media saturation campaign by the opposition" -- and yet this thing passed handily. Turnout was high, too -- just like in, er, Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, there's this, in a story about an otherwise extremely bleak poll for Democrats, conducted for NPR by a Democratic polling firm and a Republican one:

There is one bright spot for the president in the poll's results: Obama's proposed bank tax.

"[The Wall Street bailout is] very much at the heart of problems plaguing incumbents and plaguing Democrats," [Democratic pollster Stan] Greenberg says, adding that more people think Democrats are responsible for the bailouts than helping the middle class.

"So the fee on the banks wins a lot of support," he says.

Most of President Obama's agenda has united the Republicans in opposition, but a bank tax is one of the few things with the potential to drive a wedge through the Republican ranks.

Are you listening, Democrats? And left blogosphere denizens?

Health care should not be the #1 priority. Doing something about an economy in which the tide is lifting yachts and sinking all other boats should be the #1 priority. At the very least, just respond to anger about the inequity.

Ah, but Obama will probably fixate on the deficit, while Left Blogistan will stick with "Health Care Reform or Death!"

By the way, this poll now shows generic Republicans with a 30-point advantage among white men going into 2010 -- and a 9-point advantage among white women. Um, that's not good.

****

UPDATE: Adam is right -- put the Oregon referendum on the ballot in states all over the country.