I just had a few thoughts, and don't have time to develop them fully (That whole job + young family thing is a time suck from blogging!). But they've worked well for me, and hopefully they'll give you some concise ammo to deal with your conservative interlocutors.
- The press wonders why Obama's many major accomplishments haven't sunk into the public's minds... maybe it's because he's been too busy governing to campaign all the time.
- We need to reform education, they say, because we're falling behind--- we're barely in the top 20! By that standard, it's definitely time to reform health care, because we're barely in the top 40!
- The government doesn't create regulations for shits and giggles... regulations are responses to specific market failures. In doing so, they keep the bad apples from spoiling the bunch.
(For instance, we have food inspectors because the market didn't keep the immoral butchers from selling rotten meat. Selling rotten meat puts people's lives in danger, and that's immoral. The market was rewarding them at the expense of moral butchers who sold clean meat. So the government stepped in.)
- The way I was raised, if you make a mess, you clean it up. That's why I support environmental laws.
(The market has never kept factory and plant owners from being total slobs and putting people's lives in danger. So if they can't clean up their messes on their own, we'll just have to make them.)
- How about a new rule: Any new financial instrument has to go through years of "clinical trials" before being unleashed on the market. These things have proven to be as dangerous as any untested medicine, and they need to be safe before the public risks their lives and livelihoods on them.
That's all for now! Be sure to go vote! And go beyond: Talk to people!