Redstate

It *can* be done. It even can be done without loss of honor on either side.

By Moe Lane Posted in 2008 | Clinton supporters | Disaffected Democrats — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I don't know whether it was the Empress Theodora who said this, or whether it was Eric Flint, but either way, it's good advice:

"Do not trample over old friends in your haste to make new ones."

Constant Reader Susannah notes that the Democrats are in the process of ignoring that advice. I think that there are two mistakes that Republicans need to avoid with regard to this rather unique situation in American politics: not taking advantage of the opportunity, and not following the above advice.

Well, if it was going to be easy then it'd already be done, wouldn't it?

Read on.

Let me start off with the second mistake. Getting more voters should not take precedence over holding to our core principles, even if it gets us a net increase in votes. There are a lot of conservative voters out there who are already gingerly voting McCain, even though he's not their first choice, or second choice, or even fourth. I say this as a moderate/liberal/squishy-soft RiNO/whatever I am: it's not quite the problem that it looks like online (very few things are), but it is a problem, and we need to remember that. So we can't give away the store to the potential new customers. The old customers will feel betrayed, and they will have reason.

However, we can still make the sale. How?

By doing three things.

1). Find common ground. From my own experience, this is most likely to be on national security issues; Senator Clinton seems to have been the final destination for centrist Democrats in general, at least on natsec policy. They may not think that we're winning the war, but they don't want to lose it, either; so we can talk to them about it. More generally, if you're in conversation with a Clinton supporter and you end up legitimately agreeing with them about something, for Heaven's sake, say so. Even if your opinion is actually at odds with conventional Republican orthodoxy*; if you can explain how you can reconcile your differences (it helps if you actually have, of course), it will only help the conversation.

2). Be forthright, but not abusive, about your lack of common ground. There are certain truths about the Republican Party. We welcome people who are adamant about ending abortion. We welcome people who want to shrink our government down to the size of Lithuania's. We welcome people who want to launch the United Nations building into orbit, with the grudging concession of giving the denizens five minutes' head start. I'm exaggerating some of this for comic effect, but the point is that there really are major differences between the two Parties, and for some people, these differences will be too high to surmount. Rather more will need to have the issue at least addressed.

When that happens in a particular place, maintain politeness. If you disagree with someone on a topic, carefully note it, and explain why (make sure that you actually listened to them; apparently, this is a problem for human beings in general). If it becomes clear that there is no compromise available, simply shrug, smile and make some variant of the comment "This is what it is, about me." If they become abusive about it, simply disengage. Those people were probably going to fall back into the Democratic orbit anyway, and at least this way neither of you are wasting your time.

3). Avoid sadism. You may not understand why a particular person has a personal attachment to Senator Hillary Clinton's plight (but if you can ask without coming across as rude, do so). But if it exists, it exists - and we are after all trying to avoid the mistakes of antiwar Democrats, who have still not worked out that they would have won in 2004 if they had just lost their fairly irrational Bush-hatred, or even kept it down to a dull roar. I'm not saying that you have to like the woman - she's not on my Christmas card list - but if there are elements of her story and personality that you can actually respect, then it's OK to say so to a Clinton supporter**.

Bottom line: we will not get every disaffected Clinton supporter. Many of them don't really want to be gotten, and that's their privilege. But we can get the folks for whom the last few months have been a bit of an eye-opener. We just have to be smart and honest about it, that's all.

Moe Lane

*For example: I personally am an advocate for permitting same-sex marriage, albeit via legislation and not judicial fiat. I support DoMA not as good law, but merely as a good idea, in order to allow the nation to see how various SSM programs play out. I did not and will not support the FMA. And I'm still a site moderator for a major Republican / conservative weblog.

**For another example: As I said, I don't overly like the woman: mostly for her policy positions, but there are certain personality elements that I'm not entirely fond of. But she actually does the job in the Senate that she was elected to do, she's been good about visiting the troops, and she certainly went down swinging in the primaries. In all of this she stands in stark contrast to the assumed Democratic nominee, and there's no harm in saying so.