Clearly, we've been seeing a rash of What Is To Be Done?-style posts.  That's a lot to sift through, especially when everyone agrees that progressives need to be "on message."  What is the message?

Many people both here and in the national media have said that liberals need to connect with rural red-state type voters.  Of course, the gut reflex - and I admit to falling prey to this myself - is to say, "We shouldn't have to turn into Republicans!"  Well, we don't.  Read below to see my non-yet-fully-formed thoughts on this.

At a meeting of the National Urban League in Detroit today, President Bush admitted that the GOP has "a lot of work to do" in order to win African-American votes.  The AP story is here.

What do folks on dKos make of this?  It seems to me that this "outreach" has a twofold purpose:  first, to make the Democrats a little nervous about their base; second, and more importantly, to appeal to white moderates who don't want to think of themselves as racist.

Do folks think there's any traction here?  Or is this an ineffective gesture?