I guess I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there: I don't think we need parties AT ALL. call me an idealist, but I think we'd be genuinely better off without the two hulking, cronyistic, good-old-boys clubs that run the country right now. neither one cares about the American public nearly as much as they do about hurting the other party.
my solution:
outlaw parties all together. each candidate can just tell people what they believe, and we can vote for them based on that. 'nuff said.
(warning, this entire post is more or less entirely lifted from my personal political manifesto.)