Good post, but remember, paragraphs are your friend. :-)
Seems heavy on 2006-2008. Seems light on the reality that we get the political campaign we deserve.
If freepers/teaparty/Bernie types were to go door-to-door ... and to care about local elections that build door-to-door armies, then the media would not be as important. That would force the media to play a different game.
But precisely because we don’t do our job we create a vacuum for the media.