The key to stopping them, in my opinion, is to revive a venerable lefty concept: that of the "popular front."

Progressives need to be willing to participate in as broad a political coalition as possible, in order to take back the White House and narrow the GOP majorities in the House and Senate. That may be the best that can be hoped for in this election cycle, although if the backlash against the Rovian agenda is strong enough, and the congressional elections get "nationalized," it's conceivable the GOP might lose its grip on the House. That would be a huge victory. I'm not saying it's likely, because it ain't, but it may at least be possible.

In the short run, which means for the duration of this particular election campaign, the key to building a winning coalition is to appeal to swing voters and to less committed Republicans on economic issues -- jobs and "outsourcing" in particular -- much as the Clinton campaign did in 1992.

Like most fascist or quasi-fascist movements, the social conservative coalition is brittle, because it inherently requires so many of its core loyalists to place their cultural "values" ahead of their economic interests. Of course, you could make the same argument about the affluent liberals on the Democratic side. But, being affluent, these folks usually have more leeway to vote against their own wallets.

That's why the Republicans have no choice but to continually stoke the fires of the culture wars. It's an essential ingredient in their particular brand of faux populism. In good times, or in war time, the strategy usually works well. But in hard times, the economic pressures can become too strong for the culture warriors to contain. And the problem is getting worse, because the appeal of Reaganomics has long since faded for many middle-class and lower middle-class voters.

Edwards understands this, which is why he's built his entire campaign around his brand of economic populism lite. Kerry, with his neoliberal credentials, is having a harder time fitting into that groove. But he's working on it. Assuming he wins the nomination, he'll have plenty of time to steal Edward's platform and make it his own.

[...]

To really crack the GOP coalition, though, economic populism has to be wrapped in something larger -- like the flag. I'm coming around to the view that the winning theme for the Democrats in this election -- the one that could really tear the bark off Bush (to borrow somebody else's phrase) is "economic patriotism." The Dems need a rhetorical and substantive program that ties the job/trade issue into a broader set of arguments about the privileges and obligations of citizenship, the relationship between fiscal stewardship and national strength, and the enduring worth of basic American principles like opportunity, community and fairness. And they have to contrast those priorities with the increasingly warped values of the corporate crony capitalists and their Republican water boys in Washington.

In other words, the Democrats need to make the case that the GOP has been selling ordinary hard-working, middle-class Americans down the river - and thus selling the country down the river.

Combine that populist stance with a strong - but sensible - strategy for fighting terrorism (one that doesn't actually try to turn it into World War IV) plus a full-court press against the Bush adminstration's fuzzy foreign policy objectives and raging managerial incompetence, and I think the Democrats could create a message that would peel away a lot of the GOP's "soft support" -- isolating the social conservatives and driving them back on their Deep South/Plains States base. It's a strategy that should play particularly well in the Rust Belt states - Ohio and Pennsylvania in particular - and in the Midwest heartland - Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. And if the Dems are going to win this election, those are the places where they're going to have to win it.

He goes on to discuss possible strategies for creating an electoral majority for the long term. Hop on over and read the entire thing.