I had just finished a conference call the other day that was set up by the Campaign for America's Future, a progressive strategy group outlining the launching of its Economic War Room. Once both national conventions are done, the new online center will send out daily e-mails with progressive economic talking points and polling data, co-director Robert Borosage said.

The bottom line: The Democratic message on the economy was falling flat because it was all about criticism without offering solutions. Voters didn't disagree with the criticism of the GOP and the Bush administration, pollster Celinda Lake said; but any five or six people sitting around a dining room table would have come up with those same criticisms. Voters want to hear how we can get out of this mess.

"A critique of the economy doesn't win," Lake said. "A populist and focused solution wins in polling."

That made me rethink my column for this issue. After all, why should I decry the sad state of politics two weeks before the Aug. 26 primary when any five or six Tampa Bay voters could figure out on their own that something is horribly wrong?

After all, they've seen what's been going on: both presidential candidates running so hard to pick up new voters to their cause that they risk alienating their original supporters; a swindler telling the FBI he allegedly raised thousands for a Tampa Bay politician with the explicit promise that the pol would vote for his zoning changes; a supervisor of elections who testified in a deposition that he really doesn't know a heck of a lot about how his office works.

Is there any wonder why voters aren't super-psyched for the primary?

But what's the answer? Solutions, that's what we need. That's what the pollster tells us the public wants. Answers, dammit!

So here goes:

PROBLEM: Politicians flipping and flopping. Barack Obama was for a 16-month troop withdrawal in Iraq; now he's against it. John McCain was for immigration reform; now, not so much. Charlie Crist was against offshore drilling; now, with the vice presidential selection on the line, he's Florida's top roughneck.

Let's be reasonable. There's room for positions to change and ideas to evolve. But the election-year contortions going on now are beyond the pale.

SOLUTION: Issues lock-in. When you apply for a mortgage, your interest rate is locked in for a period of time. The bank can't change it. Same for candidates under my new campaign rule. Candidates who publicly profess a position during their party's primary cannot change their stance during the general election — even if we know they could just screw us over and change their minds once they are elected. They are fined $100,000 by the FEC for every time they violate their issue lock-in.

PROBLEM: Campaign funds hanky-panky. Candidates are always claiming they had "no idea" the campaign contribution they received was ill-gotten booty. Both Obama and McCain have had to give back contributions once the scumbaggery of the givers was revealed.

SOLUTION: Full contributor disclosure. People or corporations that contribute more than $100 to a candidate or PAC have to reveal to the campaign, in writing, the names of any relatives (to first cousin) or related companies who have also made political contributions in the current election cycle. If relatives or related companies give money later, all the contributors must reveal those connections to the candidates within 48 hours. Finally, contributors must reveal any/all civil lawsuits, criminal matters pending or fraud convictions and sign an affidavit revealing whether they solicited/bundled additional contributions from co-workers, friends, neighbors, minor children or their pet dogs.

PROBLEM: Voter fatigue. This has been the longest sustained presidential campaign in U.S. history. Actually, it has spanned almost all of U.S. history. Voters are exhausted. The candidates are exhausted.

SOLUTION: Summer vacation. Starting in 2010, presidential politics will take the month of August off. Candidates will chill out with a cold Bud Light at the lake or beach somewhere. Political consultants and spinmeisters will whack themselves up with about 400 mg of Thorazine and enjoy 31 days of near coma. Bloggers will unplug their laptops. Political reporters will find uplifting stories about children who hiccup, criminals gone straight or dogs (the non-campaign-contributing kind). There will be no mention of anything to do with politics until after the national conventions.

PROBLEM: The shallowness of campaign rhetoric. So, back to that conference call I mentioned at the start of this column. One of the participants, psychologist and The Political Brain author Drew Westen, talked about why Democrats initially stumbled so poorly on the economy. The Dems talked about long-term solutions and pooh-poohed offshore drilling. The Republicans, on the other hand, understand that voters often think in a nonlinear way with their subconscious. The GOP understands that voters hear "oil" and "drilling" and make a deep connection. "We need to drill to get oil. We need more oil to have lower prices. If we drill, we get lower prices." No amount of reason — that offshore drilling wouldn't impact prices for 10 years and that it could only lower the price of gas by about 3 percent at best — overcomes the subconscious "oil-drilling" connection.

SOLUTION: Ban 24-hour cable news channels. Actually, banning 24-hour cable news channels is my solution to every problem.

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2008.