Reply #14: Here's a suggestion:

[Warren DeMontague]

Re-frame the issues, and the debate. That's what the GOP has been doing. I would argue that, this is valid for this current election, as well. We've tried becoming "republican lite", and that only works so well. The hard-core greedheads, for example, are never going to vote for a Democrat, even if Bush's idea of "Fiscal responsibility" is to run the deficit through the roof while letting his CEO buddy's raid the treasury for no-bid contracts worth billions...
And, (memo to Joe Lieberman) we're never gonna be able to co-opt the GOP on smarmy pandering to the god-squad on so-called "culture war" issues. That said, what needs to be done (and this is why I think Edwards as Veep is such a god-damn masterstroke) is a reframing of the terms of the debate, like "values"... Once upon a time, for instance, Catholics voted almost exclusively democrat. They didn't do it because of birth control or who was screwing who or anything like that, but they did it, in part, because of a widespread sense that economic fairness and looking out for the little guy were basic, "Christian" issues. Martin Luther King used the mantle of Christian Values to implore the country towards progressive, positive change. Somewhere along the line the GOP and the right wing scored a massive coup in divorcing values issues from issues of economic and social fairness, and tossing out these red herrings about abortion and gays and janet jackson's boob as a cheap substitute. We need to point out that looking out for the poor and disenfranchised is the truly moral path, and the Republicans, no matter how much they wave the bible around, don't do that at all. We need to remind people that 40 Million Americans w/o health insurance is not the "beauty of the free market", it's a flagrant travesty in the most advanced nation on Earth.

I think that the GOP "coalition" has a tremendous weakness, because although folks in the heartland may get riled up about so-called culture war nonsense, if they're out of a job, can't get health insurance, and their kids are coming home in boxes from Iraq, suddenly stuff like Gay Marriage and whether or not the couple up the street are screwing outside of marriage suddenly become a lot less important, IMHO. So, I think the answer is not to compromise our core beliefs, just to do a better job of expressing them.

Phew!