To make progress you have to have a way to measure progress.
You have to have something to compare to in order to measure.
We want all the votes we can get, but there is of course a sense that you can only get so many votes before you compromise on your values. To get Bush's real base to vote for you, you concievably have to become something you don't want to be. So where is the limit. What can we shoot for? Can we dare even to think the number is greater than 50%? 52%
I'm not asking in this diary what we're willing to do to get them... that's off topic, beyond the focus here.
Just: how would we measure our progress with the people, what is our goal?
I suggest we should aim to get all the same voters that voted for Obama. Obama won by 70% of the Illinois vote, Kerry by 55%. That's 15% of voters that were conservative enough to accept W over Kerry, but obviously not so rabidly-anti-Democrat they would choose Keyes over Obama. Is putting Bush in the White House really less dangerous than Keyes in the Senate? In that gap lies the difference between freedom and tyranny.
Those are our voters.
Democratic Obama
3,555,586 70%
Republican Keyes
1,376,044 27%
Democratic Kerry
2,866,307 55%
Republican Bush
(Incumbent)
2,336,253 45%