Of course, if you don’t want a cola — or any kind of sugared, carbonated beverage — this kind of question doesn’t help.

It seems that the same kind of thing is happening in politics, where people increasingly are seeing the two main brands, Democrat and Republican, offering two slightly different variations on the same basic treacly, gassy content.

You’d think that the disruptive nature of the internet would mean that bloggers, who ostensibly are not constrained by the mainstreaming pressures of mainstream political cultures, would be pushing for real progressive policies, or, for that matter, real conservative policies.

Strangely, when it comes to the mainstream bloggers, that does not seem to be the case. (Or maybe it’s not so strange, considering how some bloggers are now in bed with political PACs.)

Cross-posted on mediagirl.org and dKos … More after the jump….

And so we see a lot of agitation within the Democratic Party, and its supporters, to ditch its traditional values and just go for market share. Like New Coke and Pepsi Free, we get Cherry Democrat and Republican Lite, two competing products from brand names who don’t care about anything but market share.

People have noted how politics get marketed to the public. But what’s increasingly clear is how the two major parties are bringing market-think into politics.

The logic may make sense in business. MTV started with music videos, but eventually transformed itself into a reality television network, all in an effort to boost ratings, and thus perfectly “valid” for the corporate bottom line. But is this the way to go in politics? Forget what people stand for, just elect the right gangbangers, no matter how awful they are?

Does it really make sense to advocate a political direction that deliberately abandons the people who’ve counted on the Democratic Party to stand up for them? How is this a winning strategy? I thought ends-justifying-the-means rationales were discredited centuries ago.

Alas, the temptation to give in to the dark side is too great.

Some people think environmentalism is too inconvenient politically, despite the evidence that environmental problems are much bigger than politics. Some people think that women’s equality and reproductive rights are too inconvenient politically, despite the horrors that are happing across this country. They think a party should change its politics as willy nilly as MTV changes its program offerings, as long as it might gain market share.

The thing is — and perhaps this represents a break-down in my analogy — not even Coke or Pepsi would be so cavalier towards their the formulae of core businesses.

So why should the Democrats?