Democrats rush in where angels fear to tread

via Slate:

The grounds for political combat seem to have changed as well. If recent special elections are any indication—where GOP candidates refused to comment on signature GOP policies—extreme polarization means Republicans can mobilize supporters without being forced to talk about or account for their actual actions. Identity, for many voters, matters more than their pocketbooks. Republicans simply need to signal their disdain—even hatred—for their opponents, political or otherwise. Why worry about the consequences of your policies when you can preclude defeat by changing the ground rules of elections, spending vast sums, and stoking cultural resentment?

I'm not recommending that we should be fearful in the face of Republican backlash.
But I am suggesting that perhaps Democratic politicians should forgo attempting
to appeal to conservative voters. At least not overtly. They may have conservative
proposals, of course, that they think might appeal to conservative voters, but
ultimately Democratic politicians will always be tarred and feathered by Republicans
as being "latte liberals," as being snooty, arrogant intellectuals and socialists,
regardless of whether they're wearing 2K suits or coonskin caps and cowhide pants.

In other words, fuck 'em. Most conservative voters will hate whomever the
Democrats feature. 30+ years of indoctrination have made conservative voters
tribalists, incapable of accepting anything of value that does not emanate from the
collective approval within the tribe. So just fuck 'em and focus on Democrats and
independents; and most importantly, on voter turnout because, quite simply, there
are way more Democrats and independents than there are Republicans.

The trick, as Barack Obama so conclusively proved, is getting way more of
them to the polls to vote.