what should the Dems do to attract conservative voters?

[ulysses]

Poll question: what should the Dems do to attract conservative voters?

[tulsakatz]

1. actually if you want to attract the right........

.......all you have to do is promise to lower taxes!!

That gets them every time!!!

[ulysses]

3. hey, read my lips!

:)

[goddess40]

screw the conservative voters

we need to appeal to the non-voters those that voted for bush and haven't seen the light after 5 years of getting shit on are lost causes. We need to empower the non-voter. The Dem politicians need to come back left of center and stop trying to do the republicans.

[Lorien]

52. Amen Goddess40! n/t

[Atman]

2. Piss on them. They seem to like it.

nt

[goddess40]

5. we seem to be on the same wave length

I think Howard Dean might be too, at least I hope so.

[msongs]

4. mouse traps with money on them? nt

[Cocoa]

6. decry the Bush deficits

[ulysses]

7. how well has that worked to this point? n/t

[Cocoa]

12. is that a rhetorical question?

here's a sincere question for you: do you think the dems should make an issue out of the Bush deficits? (I do)

[ulysses]

14. no.

Yes, I think they should make an issue of the deficits. That alone won't do much, though.

[Cocoa]

18. another one

attack Bush's prescription drug boondoggle, which had quite a bit of conservative opposition.

Also, trade is another issue that can attract some conservatives.

[blondeatlast]

43. Loudly and at every turn. I can't believe how few Dems have picked

up on this.

[bullimiami]

8. act like damn democrats for a change. and let the voters come to them.

its honesty and sense vs lying and nonsense.

[ulysses]

9. I don't think we're allowed to do that any more.

:shrug:

[Dr Fate]

10. Large Middle Class tax cuts. n/t

n/t

[ulysses]

11. which result in...

[Dr Fate]

19. ...Conservatives voting Democratic.

That and plenty of money being spent on consumer goods- and more money for folks like mabye you or me to start localy owned, non-corporate businesses that hire local people...More money staying in the community...

This would be at the expense of the top 1%-who would have to have their taxes raised for this to work- but they would also benefit from the middle class consumerism...

Middle class tax cuts would raise the standard of living in this country.

[blondeatlast]

44. I've been thinking this for some time. More disposable income

for the middle is the best way to boost the economy.

The rich spend a far, far smaller percentage of their incomes than the middle class and poor do.

[Hippo_Tron]

57. Socialized healthcare would save the middle class more money, but...

You can bet that, that won't be happening any time soon.

[Time for change]

13. We could point out that

Making up lies to pave the way to war, running up the biggest debt in the nation's history, and deciding to stay on vacation for a couple of extra days instead of responding to the worst natural disaster to hit our country in decades are not conservative virtues.

[Cobalt Violet]

15. Screw the teachers' union!

Just joking.:D :evilgrin:

I go with the 1st choice. I say we sacrifice none of our own.

[ulysses]

16. bad cobalt!

:D

[dcfirefighter]

17. Start treating the causes, rather than the symptoms of socioeconomic

injustice.

I voted for letting them self-destruct.

Rather than fighting divisive battles over AA, welfare, gay rights, etc., use economic judo.

Correct the imbalance of 200 years of white ownership, empower the economy to provide jobs for all, separate benefits from marriage.

Tax the crap out of the ownership of things not created by labor: land property values and licenses. Taxing these doesn't put a single person out of work, while decreasing housing costs and reducing sprawl & transport costs.

Reduce corporate welfare by charging market rates for access to federal property for mining, drilling, grazing, and timber cutting. Reduce corporate welfare by eliminating grandfathered polluters. Reduce corporate welfare by retaining patents found through federal research in the public domain.
Improve employment by reducing the payroll tax such that people keep more of their check, and employment becomes cheaper. As more people are employed, labor becomes scarcer, and wages increase.
Come up with a universal health care plan that isn't attatched to employment, and doesn't write a blank check to big pharma. Single payer scares government insurance scares me more than the military-industrial complex and federal flood insurance do. I like Switzerland's UHC program.

[dR. O]

20. well

I would suggest ditching the PC UTOPIAN agenda i.e. REALITY is not even close to UTOPIA

[bluedawg12]

21. Read this

this source came from another thread here at DU:

The Republican Nemesis
http://www.taxwisdom.org/republican_nemesis.htm

but the author nails it.


Here is the thread at DU that introduced this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2095720

[tsuki]

22. Stop calling Conservatives, NeoCons; and stop calling Moderates,

Conservatives. Then go after the Moderates.

[Telly Savalas]

27. The moderates already vote for Democrats.

[tsuki]

30. Not the moderates who are convinced they are conservatives, just

not one of those wingnut NeoCons. Took me 5 years to convince a friend that she was a moderate, not a conservative.

[RoyGBiv]

31. Not necessarily ...

Depends partly on your definition of a moderate, I suppose, but a sizable percentage of people see themselves as moderate who are either socially conservative but fiscally rather liberal or socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Both of these groups typically call themselves moderates. They'll vote either party, depending on who speaks to their own individual interests.

Oklahoma, for example, is full of the former. Those politicians that tailor their message as an appeal to the rights of workers and who avoid offending their social values tend to do better. Democrats within this state focus of the labor rights while Republicans concentrate on the social aspects. Due to the image as portrayed by Republicans of the national Democratic party, Republicans have lately been winning this battle because local Democrats have been ineffectual in countering it. They seem to think the goal is to focus more on fiscal conservatism when in fact what is moving moderate Democrats to vote for Republicans is the social message conveyed by Republicans.

[tsuki]

50. No, they don't. They are confused by the verbage. My friend

thought it was alright to be a conservative as long as she wasn't a NeoCon.

[blondeatlast]

45. There are conservatives and there are neocons. One group (neocons)

really don't have the interests of the true conservatives at heart.

Neocons favor (and the Bush administration is the proof) of much smaller government, but--and this is HUGE--much more governmental power over our everyday lives.

[tsuki]

49. The NEOCONS are the conservatives. They are the John Birchers,

Roy Cohns, J. Edgar Hoovers and Joe McCarthys. Look at FR. They have avatars for McCarthy. They consider him a real, true conservative. And he is.

Goldwater, Rockefeller, and hell, even Nixon were conservative leaning moderates. The conservatives and fundies were considered the wingnuts of the party.

It has taken me five years to convince my friend that she is a moderate. She knows that to vote conservative now is to vote for those in power. There is no difference between NEOCON (a made up word) and conservative.

We need the moderates back. We need for them to understand that they are moderates, and not conservatives. We don't need to give them an excuse to vote conservative using a hair-splitting, conservative talking point like NeoConservative.

[hogwyld]

23. do we want

conservative voters really? I think we have to get back to being the party of progressive thought instead of being repuke light.

[ulysses]

24. there's a point to be made there, yes.

:)

[blondeatlast]

46. We need to stand on principle and let voters make the choice.

We don't need to troll for conservaticve voters, we just need to state our case and TRUE conservatives will have to choose us or the neocon agenda.

Guess who has more appeal to the TRUE conservatives? We do.

[bluedawg12]

25. Simplify, simplify, simplify, short sentences

camera friendly faces, staged rally's, and strong emotional language content.

Hey, it worked for them.

"The change in Republican language began with Newt Gingrich in 1994, and while much of his communication still came across as angry and partisan, when Newt was speaking about policy and not talking about those who opposed him, there was none better, and there has been none better.
Frank Luntz"


I can guarantee no one wants to hear about the intricacies of govenrment, budget, and financing, etc.


"Language: A Key Mechanism of Control- Newt G."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm

They want: (check out the article and see how often they use these words to stir people)

active(ly)
activist
building
candid(ly)
care(ing)
challenge
change
children
choice/choose
citizen
commitment
common sense
compete
confident
conflict
control
courage

learn
legacy
liberty
light
listen
mobilize
moral
movement
opportunity
passionate
peace
pioneer
precious
premise
preserve
principle(d)
pristine
pro- (issue): flag, children, environment, reform
prosperity
protect
proud/pride
provide
reform
rights
share
strength
success
tough
truth
unique
vision
we/us/our

[ulysses]

26. that's a fair point.

:thumbsup:

[Telly Savalas]

28. Convert them to liberalism.

[Robertwf]

29. Make them think we have Halliburton jobs for them

[Salviati]

32. Other:

Put out bowls of bullshit on the step, the conservative voters must love the stuff, seeing how much of it they swallow from this administration every day....

[kweerwolf]

33. Point out to them the link between voting Republican ...

... and having gay or lesbian children.

John Ashcroft ... Phyllis Schlaffly ... Randall Terry ... Alan Keyes ... Mr. and Mrs. Rove

That should scare the hell outta them!

[bluedawg12]

34. Really asscrafty and turd blossom's kids join

Mary C. and Newt G's family tree?

[kweerwolf]

35. Dang! I forgot about Mary and Candace!

There's something to that idea after all.

And yes, it's true about John "Let the Eagle Crap" Ashcroft's oldest kid, John (Jay) Jr. In fact, there were rumors that Ashcroft stepped down as attorney general in part because the gay press was going after the story about his son hot and heavy. (Knowing some folks that knew the Ashcrofts when he was governor, there are some really strange stories that can be told about the family. I can imagine Ashcroft exploding like an eagle hit by a cruise missile if he ever saw his face on the cover of The Advocate under the headline "Daddy Dearest.")

Don't know about turdblossum ... actually, I was referring to his parents and all the rumors that KKKarl at least has a closet door that swings both ways. (Personally, I'm more of the opinion that KKKarl has female AND male blow-up dolls stored under his bed.)

[bluedawg12]

36. Such hypocrites- they would sell out their own flesh and blood

for base votes.

They know better than to dehumanize and scapegoat but noooo.....

[OzarkDem]

37. Educate them

about what works best for the country and for them. Conservative voters who are middle class or lower are incredibly uneducated when it comes to knowing what helps and hurts them. They don't understand tax cuts, Social Security, Medicare, health care in general, foreign diplomacy, you name it.

Its been a big failure on Dems part in recent years. They haven't done a very good job of defining what works for the country and citizens and its caught up with them. In fact, Dems became so obessessed with popularity and polling, they completely forgot about educating voters.

They have a lot of work to do.

[tnlefty]

38. Whaaaat? There is no 2 X 4 option?

First you take a 2 X 4, and knock some sense into them.;-)

I chose the first. It seems that many more people are going to have to feel the effects of conservative votes - especially in the south.

[Crunchy Frog]

39. Realize that some conservatives

actually respect people who stand up strongly for their principles, and do not respond well to wishy washy types who don't seem to believe in anything and constantly have their finger to the wind.

Show them how Democratic party values are ones that they can support, ie, fiscal responsibility, belief in accountability, basic competence.

I don't think that conservatives are monolithic, and I genuinely do think that some of them will be drawn by a Democrat who is seen as strong in his/her convictions and principles, is not cowed, and is able to articulate beliefs in such a way that they can resonate with a wider spectrum of people.

I think there are alot of people who will vote for someone they disagree with if that person seems strong and principled, rather than someone they agree with but who seems weak. I think some of *'s voters in the last election fell into that category.

What the Democrats need to figure out is that abandoning our core principles and appearing not to stand for anything makes us appear weak and unappealing.

[OneBlueSky]

40. run RFK Jr. for president . . . n/t

.

[AntiCoup2K4]

59. Unfortunately, that would attract ONE conservative voter (with a gun)

...an employee of the Bush Criminal Empire just like the bastards who killed his dad and his uncle (and maybe his cousin).

[MintOreoCookie]

41. There was a great article in the New York Times some time ago

where the author gave democrats recommendations on how to get moderates interested in our causes. For example, he said that many people see us as "pro-abortion" because we support a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. He recommended that the democrats in Congress find ways to educate people in order to reduce the number of abortions each year. Right now, I cannot remember what he said we should do to accomplish that.

I think our problem is that we don't do a good job informing people of what we stand for. Take the environment. Republicans are pro-industry. We are pro-environment. The republicans try to come off as pro-environment by saying that their relaxing the standards of the Clean Air Act will help our air quality by allowing industry to reduce their emissions on their own and trading with other companies. Give me a break. But you would be amazed at how many people see the republicans as pro-environment. The democrats should be detailing the number of people who die and get asthma as a result of the current air quality. Those are facts that people can relate to.

[blondeatlast]

42. WE'VE become the party of fiscal responsibility and we need to

hammer that fact home.

[Pepperbelly]

47. always with the unity themes, U.

Still at it, I see.

[ulysses]

56. I'm sort of amazed that the thread is still up here.

Unity...yeah, well, I've tried the unity thing more times than I can count, Pepper, and have found conservative Dem interest underwhelming. This was actually in response to another thread last night.

[Ignacio Upton]

48. Other: convert them to being moderates or even liberals

However, the fact that we stand by and don't tenough action against the GOP is one of the reasons why we are perceived as weak (as a physclogical extension of our perceived weakness on foreign policy.)

[Lorien]

51. Screw the conservatives

and give democrats a REASON to go to the polls next time around(other than ABB)!

[renie408]

53. Bush isn't running again

So I am not sure how much of a factor his being a major fuck up is going to be. Just being "not Bush" isn't going to win this next election. Even the Republican candidate won't be Bush and if they are smart, they will stay away from him. In fact, I think they will run their next campaign something like this "I stand for similar things as Bush, but I am not a moron and I am not part of his clique. I am the Republican Anti-Bush."

My answer is not up there. I think that if Dems want to win the next election, WE need to start educating the public NOW. If Dems are going to win back the White House, we need to explain how the 'tax cuts' are directly responsible for some of the problems we are having right now. We have to explain in ways that people can understand, without sounding patronizing, how the 'if its good for big business, its good for all of us' mentality is just stupid and wrong. Most little guys are NOT into being good to big business, BTW. We have to attack the PARTY'S politics, not Bush's.

[napi21]

54. Point out all the Shrub plans that have failed! Then propose our

dofferent plans to fix what's wrong.

A little earlier today, I posted an idea regarding Corporate taxes. I don't think we can ever win by harping on the reverse Shrub's tax reductions, even if we say it's only the ones relating to the very wealthy. People just don't respond well to the idea of a tax increase. HOWEVER! For years and years, special loopholes have been placed in the tax code to give most VERY LARGE Corps. tax exemptions and exclusions that has resulted in many of them paying no tax at all! In fact, lots get a negative tax because of subsidies.

I suggest we propose a total overhaul of the Corp. tax structure. Lots of things could be eliminated completely, like the offshore shelters, no tax due on $$ made internationally until you bring it back into the US, special exemptions isolated to one Corp or a single business catagory or industry, etc. We also need to take a closer look at subsidies. Some are just stupid!

IT may not cure every problem we have in this Country, but it sure would be a good start, and I think it would be a great start, and would quell all the complaints about the Dems not having any ideas, and the majority of Americans would find it acceptable.

[bluedawg12]

55. Give them a strong message of hope for the middle class.

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2095597&mesg_id=2097006

Is there a Democratic Message cooking here?!!! Idea!!

[TankLV]

58. NOTHING! It's a failed philosophy. Katrina proved that.

We should be courting communists and socialists, progressives and liverals, and all other left wing persons - that is more closer to where we should be headed anyway.

We should villify and ridicule and marginalize all conservatives.

They have proven that they can't govern, and that their policies only benefit the wealthy and those that don't need any further help.

Screw the conservatives.

We don't need them, and I certainly don't want them!

Besides, why would we want to become more like the REPUKES?!

They already have a party - let the repukes keep them and we get everyone else.

[wolvesslasher]

60. Quit the bashing and start giving better alternatives

I know something that might help. Stop being such hateful pricks who attack anyone that doesn't share the same beliefs and start giving some
positive ideas instead of just bashing the people you should be converting. Every post on here is full of hate and negativity. Why would
anybody want to vote for a Party that just attacks the other Party while totally ignoring any of the faults of their own Party's politicians. You can also give credit where credit is due. Instead of attacking Bush and the Republicans for EVERYTHING that goes wrong. Every time Bush does something, he gets bashed. Where as a Democratic president would not get bashed for doing the same things. That says allot. I bet if Bush met with Sheehan again he would still get bashed about it. How can anybody trust people who are so blinded by hate? Both parties are untrust worthy. So what are the choices?
Democrat- a)hateful/negative
b)untrustworthy
c)Ignores misdeeds of fellow Democrats
d)thinks that Democratic Presidents are perfect

Republican- a)warmongers
b)untrustworthy
c)ignores misdeeds of fellow Republicans
d)thinks that Republican Presidents are perfect

Geez, tough choice.
Good thing theres a third choice.