In which I Attempt to Actually Influence Votes

There's a number of reasons to be a Republican. Bear with me as I start with the bad ones:

You resent just about anyone who's not like you (racially, linguistically, geographically, economically, physically, sexually).

You can't differentiate between morality and legality.

You believe that the primary purpose of taxation is to take money from you and use it to benefit somebody else.

You are a Social Darwinist.

You are easily frightened.

Then there are the defensible reasons:

You believe that a free market lifts more people out of poverty than does government assistance.

You believe that having and using a strong military is the best way to ensure a stable globe.

You believe that the advantages of free trade outweigh the disadvantages.

You believe that every argument that is made claiming some market regulation is better than no market regulation can be made equally well to defend the notion that some cultural regulation is better than no cultural regulation.

You believe that government is inherently incapable of providing the optimal level of public services.

I tend to think of those whose political affiliation depends on some combination of the first set as the GOP base. The question is not who those folks will vote for, just how many will vote. For those people whose affiliation is primarily due to the second set, what will it take to convince them to vote Dem this fall?

When I think about it at any length, I have to conclude that I'm a really ineffective campaigner. I preach to the converted, but I tend to prefer facts to emotional appeals, which dampens that base-revving enthusiasm. I tend to think of the GOP base as unreachable, and those who can remain undecided even this far out from the election as people who are not heavily influenced by facts or principles, and thus fairly immune to my brands of persuasion.

But perhaps there is a group I can make an appeal to: Intellectual Conservatives. So let me take a shot here.

1) Democrats can be persuaded by evidence. You'll have an easier time convincing Democrats to liberalize trade than we have had convincing Republicans that Global Warming is real.

2) Democrats are more firmly committed to your civil liberties than Republicans are to 'economic freedom'.

3) Loud mouths and pre-emptive intervention are not the pillars of a conservative foreign policy.

4) Just like welfare reform could only be accomplished by Democrats, Medicare and SS reform won't happen unless led by Democrats.

You're not going to win all of the high-level arguments, and there are still some fundamental differences in philosophy that will exist, but seriously, over the last twenty years the Democratic Party has accepted the validity of more Conservative arguments, while the Republican Party has rejected more Conservative arguments. In the long term, hyper-religiosity and nationalism are going to do more to harm freedom than regulatory bodies and estate taxes, and you've got a better shot at convincing Dems that the latter two should be scaled back than you've got trying to convince Republicans that the former two should be.

You've seen John McCain pick a pork-gobbling hyper-evangelical to be a heartbeat away. You've seen Pat Tiberi talk like you but then vote like them. Some day, you'll get your party back, and we'll have some nice vigorous debates. If you do want it back, and you want a country worth debating over when it happens, you'll strongly consider voting Dem this fall.