We've had some recent discussions here about where Southern moderates are, and how to win them back. There's been a lot of discussion about how to neutralize God, gays, and guns and a new populism.
There has been something missing, though that I've noticed. We all know that the Republicans are not truly conservative, have squandered the surplus, have been bad for our economy. The centerpiece of the Contract with America was a balanced budget amendment. Bush/Cheney scoff at a balanced budget. We can take the mantle of fiscal conservatism from them. More on the flip.
First, yes, it means accepting the label "conservative." Well, tough. People in the South are conservative, and the moderates would say they're closer to conservative than liberal. Bite the bullet and deal with it. The corollary of the Republican success at defining "liberalism" as bad is that "conservatism" has become the vague "good" ideology. Both "liberal" and "conservative" have lost a lot of meaning this way, but "liberal" = bad and "conservative" = good still stand. Trying to reverse this is a battle for another day, one that will take decades.
So, we call ourselves fiscal conservatives. Then we act like budget hawks. We hammer Bush on the deficit. We hammer him on corporate welfare. We hammer him on the giveaways to Halliburton. Every time he asks for more money, we ask him just how much he's spent.
This leads to a natural framing. We are the "common sense" and "fiscal" conservatives. We're the party of responsibility and accountability. We don't spend what we don't have. They are the party of "borrow-and-spend" and runaway giveaways.
This can lead very naturally to a populist appeal. However, populism in the traditional sense, appealing to the "common man" is not the answer. It's been said that most Americans think they're wealthy and most of the rest think they will be wealthy. I disagree. I know people who make 20,000 and people who make 400,000 a year. All of them like to think of themselves as "middle class" in one form or another, whether upper or lower. Everyone thinks they are middle class.
This is where what I call "soft populism" comes in. We talk about "middle class" tax cuts. "Regular guy" personas like Clinton or Bush for their side can sell this well, but stiffs like Kerry or Gore can't. We're the party of common sense and sanity, of middle class values, of reasonable people, who like you, try and balance their budgets. That's the key to winning the growing New South suburbs.