Put it all together, and what the rally lacked most was life. That became painfully clear during Sharpton's remarks, when he tried to illustrate the Democratic coalition's current plight by telling a Bible story.

"They say we're apathetic," Sharpton told the crowd. "They say we're not energized. Well you know, I'm a preacher. There's a story in the Bible about a man named Ezekiel. Ezekiel saw a valley full of dry bones. Somebody said, 'Can these bones live?' And the way he made them live was he started connecting them together."

Sharpton suggested that the different parts of the Democratic coalition -- black, white, Latino, Asian, straight, gay, immigrant, natural-born -- are like those dry bones. "If we can connect these bones," he said, "we can make America breathe and America live as one nation under God."

Put aside a few details -- in the Bible, it was God who brought the bones to life as Ezekiel watched -- and you're left with Sharpton's striking image of the Democratic Party as a bunch of old, dry bones. Could anything be more disheartening? In the Ezekiel story, it took a miracle to make the bones come to life. But there were no miracles to be found Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial.

Asked about the most important lesson he learned from losing the Republican majority of 1994, Boehner replies, "Our team failed to live up to our own principles."

He points to recent votes as proof "we have learned our lesson" -- Republicans stood together and voted unanimously against the stimulus (twice), the Obama budget (twice), health care reform and almost all Republicans voted against cap and trade.

Boehner suggests that unity will carry over to what he hopes will be a second chance at a GOP majority.

He promises a freeze on any new federal programs and to undo those that aren't working, cost too much, or are outdated. "Congress hasn't done a good quality job of oversight in a long time," Boehner says. "I came here for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government, and that has not been what's been happening. We don't need any more programs; we need to undo a lot of programs."

Where to start? Both parties know Social Security and Medicare are in need of drastic reform. What would a Republican majority do with these nearly bankrupt programs?

Having learned from President George W. Bush's attempt to reform these spending monsters, Boehner maintains, "You can't lead with your chin. [Bush] led with a solution to a problem people didn't understand."

Instead, Boehner wants "an adult conversation" to "lay the problem out. Then you can be able to talk about an array of possible solutions." Only after people get it, he says, can you attempt "what's doable."

Boehner says part of the conversation will remind the public exactly how much their government is spending and in terms they can understand, instead of speaking about trillion-dollar debt.

He puts it this way: "Forty-one cents of every dollar the federal government spends we have to borrow from our kids and grandkids. So I think the test is real simple. You go through every damn program, every line item in the budget and you ask this question: 'Is this spending so important that we're willing to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it?' If it doesn't meet that test, then why are we doing it?"