It is funny, but the 2006 elections were not enough to kill the idea of "sending a message". I have written about this before*, but I feel the need to point out a simple fact one more time:

Sitting out the general election will NOT move the Republican party to the right.

First, let us just look at historical precedent. Many chose to sit out 2006 in order to "send a message" and what happened? As expected the Democrats won, but that is not the important part. What is important is, after "sending a message" to "move the party right", we ended up with the far from conservative McCain as our nominee. So, obviously, sitting out an election did not manage to drive the party even slightly to the right. If anything, it pushed them to the left.**

But anyone who thought for even a moment could have foreseen that outcome. For, while many figured that sitting out the election woudl clearly tell the party that the right wing was unhappy, it should have been obvious that nothing of the sort would happen.

First, if the right sits out the election, the Democrats win. So, what message does this send? To the conservatives, the message that should have been drawn was that by betraying the right, Republicans cannot win. But far more likely, the candidates who lost would notice that the winner stood even farther to their left, and they would draw the conclusion that the public wants left wing candidates. And, where the Republicans did win, it was because of the support of the remaining liberal and moderate Republican voters, meaning that even when Republicans won, it was more moderate Republicans, emphasizing the same message.

Second, by sitting out the election, the conservatives abandoned the party to the moderates and the left. Candidates and party officials recall who came out and who did not. So, when the next election comes around, in both the primaries and the general election, candidates will recall how the moderates came out to support the ticket while the right did not, and they will tailor their message to suit the reliable moderate voters. Again, by sitting out the elections, the conservatives encouraged candidates to move to the center.

Third, even when the politicians did "get the message", it was a self-defeating message. By complaining on such narrow, single issue grounds, the conservatives managed to defeat themselves. Saying "I won't support anyone who is not extremely right on immigration" or "on abortion" or "on tariffs", those who sat out the election made themselves sound nearly impossible to please. As their extreme position made them sound impossible to placate, most politicians just wrote off their votes, making their voice effectively silenced in the party. Once they said "it is all or nothing on my issue", they became irrelevant. No politician can hope to get every vote, and if any group seems too hard to please, most politicians will just ignore them. By allowing no compromise, and promising to sit out elections if a candidate will not meet their stringent requirements, they effectively said "No longer worry about my vote", and made themselves irrelevant.

So, what should we do?

Much as it pains me, we should take a page or two from the Democrat play book.

First, the Democrats (outside of the DailyKos-MoveOn fringe) are more than happy to make progress in tiny steps. They did not come out and say "Let's ban smoking", it started with bans on airlines, then shopping malls, and went from there. They did not try to take over health care wholesale. It started with Medicare/Medicaid, then state programs, then federal "funding", and so on. They do not eschew a policy just because it concedes some points to the opposition. Instead they rejoice to get even 10%, and then build upon that. Likewise, we should not shun someone because he is 50% liberal, we should instead focus on his 50% conservatism, and try to move him slowly in the right directions. Rather than ridiculing those who deviate from the positions we support, we would do much better to try to gently encourage them to return to the fold.***

Second, the Democrats are good at closing ranks. Now, I do not say we should have no internal debate. In fact, my idea is that we should use that very internal debate to move the party right. Rather than sitting out general elections, we should fight in the primaries, and between elections, to build up candidates who ARE conservative, and to move the party leadership in the right direction.

What I mean by closing ranks is that during general elections we should come together and support our party. As I have said before, no matter how much we dislike the Republican candidate, with him we still have some small voice (unlike the Democrat), and even if he is only 20% conservative, that is still almost surely better than the alternative.

Of course, I have said this again and again, as have many others, so I don't hold much hope that I will convince anyone. Still, if only a few actually listen, our situation is still that much better than it was before.

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* See my comments here, here, and here.

** Some conservatives are now recognizing this, but continue to press others to sit out this election. They argue that sitting out one more election will finally get the message through. I can't disprove this (though my other arguments do suggest it won't work), but I do have to point out that they could fail to move the party to the right for the next hundred years and still continue to make that argument. While it is possible that any failed action needs to be repeated just one more time to work, in general if something fails, it is a better idea to change tactics rather than try the same plan and hope it turns out better next time.

** In a very few cases, the Democrats do not follow their own rules. One example comes to mind. Rather than embracing Lieberman for his partly-liberal stands, the Democrats allowed the fringe of the party to drive him out. But this is a rare deviation from the Democrats' usual policy of embracing small steps and accepting even only slightly liberal politicians if it would help their cause, and can be blamed mostly on the anti-war extremists gaining temporary control of the party. In general the Democrats are happy to embrace even those with whom they disagree completely if it will help them promote their agenda. (How else can one explain all the very conservative southern Democrats who once filled the party ranks?)