I understand the median voter theorem. However, interest groups, candidates, and parties don’t necessarily have to move towards the preferences of the median voter (at least in the medium to long-term) to win votes, elections, and hearts & minds. These political actors can also attempt to pull the electorate towards their policy preferences by educating/persuading them in general or on particular issues. Therefore, the median voter shifts (mostly) instead of the candidates and parties. A case in point is how the gay/lesbian community (in conjunction with its allies in the media and educational institutions) successfully changed American attitudes, especially elite opinion, towards homosexuality. The Free Trade movement in 19th century Britain did the same thing (and quickly!).
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any pundits suggesting that the Republicans attempt to actually persuade people of the merits of their positions. Instead, we have been treated to a plethora of arguments about how the Republicans can, by selling out changing their tune, appeal to single women, Hispanics, and other blocs of voters.
Of course, I agree that some amount of this is necessary. The Republicans have been their own worst enemy in many cases (and I’m not talking just about the Missouri and Indiana Senate races). Indeed, rather than calling a truce in the culture wars as Mitch Daniels suggested, they should instead raise the white flag altogether.* But on basic philosophy and particular fiscal and regulatory issues, the Republicans should preach the good word rather than moderating their principles and learning to live and love the welfare/Nanny state.
Tell voters why occupational licensing is bad policy, especially for the poor. Educate Americans about the dangers of a dependent citizenry. Convince people that limited government and the rule of law will do more to return the American dream than the stimulus and crass interest group politics.
And to believers in freedom and markets, especially those who have benefited most from them, pour money into institutes and centers that educate Americans about economics and classical liberal philosophy rather than Rovian Super Pacs that only prove you can’t buy votes without winning the minds that pull the lever. There is a battle to be won. Let’s hit the lecture and seminar circuit and do it!
* Abortion policy would be a partial exception where Republicans should probably pivot towards a federalist position until a national majority is convinced of the moral dignity of all innocent human life.
PILEUS 
The thing has consistently bothered me over the years with the GOP, minus all the social issues nonsense that you spoke about it, is how it’s not really a free market party anymore. By constantly obsessing over cutting taxes for the rich and only speaking of the needs of business’, rather than focusing on liberating markets as a whole, it comes across more as a pro-crony/rentier capitalist party.
Maybe I’m missing something, but they don’t represent the party of capitalism in my eyes. Neither do the Democrats either, but at least they didn’t try to start a trade war with China or be openly hostile to free immigration.
I think one reason the Republicans failed in this election is their refusal to discuss “social issues.” This may have been defensive on Romney’s part due to his religion, but any future candidates must face the fact that we can’t solve our economic problems without solving our social problems. Take the decline of marriage: nearly or actually half of all births in the US now are out of wedlock. Often there are multiple births by multiple fathers.
The left began attacking the only biologically sound marriage arrangement decades ago by redefining a “family” as basically any group of people that chooses to live together. This has been a disaster. Even the New York Times acknowledged in an article this year that as much as 40% of poverty in the US is due to single parenthood – that means largely women as heads of households.
The Democrats provide incentives for this through direct financial support that enables groups of related women to live together without working. Indirect support is provided by their allies in the media who invent “alternative lifestyles” and push their acceptance. Conservatives are exercised by the advance of genderless marriage, but it is only an additional nail in the coffin.
A family headed by a mother and a father is the acknowledged best environment for raising children. Within such a family children learn trust, how to relate to others, and to accept limits. Fathers are particularly important in the process to both boys and girls. Rather than claiming a God-driven reason to support the “traditional family,” why can’t we point out that undermining the nuclear family (for lack of a better word) is bad social policy and has consequences that will iterate through generations? Rather than reaching out in this way, conservatives have made themselves the targets of humorists and others by using religious language.
I hope that Republicans do not decide that the way to win elections is to become a carbon copy of the Democrats. First of all they would not be convincing and second of all we know appeasement doesn’t work. Churchill spent many years in the political wilderness and that is what Republicans must do. They must find candidates who can better articulate conservative principles and how they apply to life and work.
The argument Republicans (and Libertarians) should make with regard to gay marriage is a First Amendment breach of the wall between religion and state. Marriage is for religions and their congregants, and the marriage license is the civil contract between two consenting adults either homo- or heterosexual. The lingering tradition of ministers acting as agents for the state (“By the power invested in me…”) is a First Amendment breach. Let religions and denominations choose who can marry, and let the state engage in the protection of property rights that come with civil unions.
Instead of railing against immigration (and those with Southern European and Asian roots would do well to remember their grandparents troubles), Republicans should argue for assimilation: English only and American culture. Previous generations were forced to assimilate, so should future generations.
@LHF: I agree that the failure of marriages and cohesive households is a worthy problem that has greatly contributed to income stagnation and declining educational attainment. However, I find it bizarre that you think the Republican party didn’t talk about this or push for it more. They would have lost even harder if they came across that way. Besides, how does government even address that problem? Do you outlaw divorce and force people to get married? This is the problem I have with social conservatives when they tread into social issues. It’s all faith based and impractical, nevermind the glaring hypocrises in how the state should behave on these matters.
The biggest contradiction is that Republicans believe in the economical freedom but they refuse personal freedom. They should really step down from some ridiculous statements and start thinking about America as a secular and religion-free state.
I don´t have that big problem with their tax policy, since lower taxes higher responsibility or higher taxes and bigger security is OK with me (I suggest you check How to Fight Crisis). The only problem is whether they are able to do a good reform or a bad reform. Even the Obamacare has its advantages, and Republicans can not deny it just by saying that everything is bad.
The “social issues” are not religious issues. I am not now, nor have I ever been, religious. My parents were card-carrying communists so I am intimately familiar with the values and goals of the left.
The left began attacking marriage and the family in the US decades ago. It has been a wide and deep assault and includes liberalizing divorce laws, legalizing abortion (which removes men from the reproduction equation), redefining the family to mean any group of people that chooses to live together, since the 60s, paying women to have children without present fathers, and recently adding genderless marriage which will be followed by group marriages of different kinds. The advocates of various group marriage arrangements are preparing their legal assault based on denial of civil rights, just like homosexuals have done.
The left’s allies in Hollywood and the media encourage family breakdown by presenting “alternative lifestyles” as cooler, more satisfying, and easy to get into and out of. Responsibility and accountability to those who may have placed their trust in you (like children) are just collateral damage. How many TV ads have you seen lately that show an intact family or if they do, do not show the father as a fool?
Libertarians should be concerned about this weakening of the nuclear (for lack of a better word) family. When families are too strong, you get powerful clans and weak central government – like Afghanistan. When families are too weak, you get the state telling you you can’t spank your child or buy a big soda, like now, and here. Brussels is another good example, since the Europeans are ahead of us in family disintegration and meddling by the state in the minutia of life.
It would be better for the Republicans to go down fighting on these issues than to capitulate. Besides, social conservatives, religious or not, are a huge part of the Republican base. Give up on these issues and there will be no Republican party.