If Barney Frank, who has worked for equality far longer than Melman, is somehow tainted because you think you remember that he endorsed John Silber (I don’t remember that, though I lived in Massachusetts then), how tainted must Melman be? Clearly, we must never trust him after what he’s done.

I also take umbrage at the phrase “San Francisco Values”. As Rick stated it seems that conservatives have a weird view of what people in San Francisco value. I do not live in the area, but that phrase along with liberal elite and intellectual elite annoy me greatly.

Other than that it was an interesting article and while I greatly dislike Ken Mehlman for much of the anti-gay rhetoric used to elect and re-elect bush I appreciate what he is attempting to do. Still does not make up for what he did, in my opinion, but it’s a start.

I’ve been doing this *exact* pitch for the last ten years and my talking points *all* come from Sullivan. I didn’t expect to see more of it when Sullivan published his, “The Conservative Soul” but that book turned out to be the primer in how to frame the debate in a language conservatives understand. CORRECTION: “… a language conservatives can HEAR” because the dog whistles have to be embedded in the argument.

Mehlman is correct when he says the majority have a core of conservatism in them and it’s the everyday, plain common sense understanding that we all have to balance a check book and we don’t want things to get complicated to the point that we fear people are talking over our heads. We want our religion, or we want our freedom *from* religion and it’s a conservative to want the government to keep their hands off our marriages as it is to say keep your hands out of my religion.

From experience, I know these approaches work and I’ve seen them work on some incredibly ugly anti-gay bigots. But you have to have conservative cred before they’ll hear you and in that regard, you just have to by-god assert it, even to the point of telling self-identified conservatives what ISN’T conservative about their views. Religious fundamentalists are especially vulnerable to having their lack of conservative credentials exposed since so many of them believe that their religious beliefs – alone – is what defines them as conservative. It’s pretty easy to show them how their beliefs are in direct conflict with classic conservatism – actually more closely associated with liberalism’s tendency to nanny the country by force of law. When you can show them how they are doing that, it’s pretty jolting to religious conservatives. The *do* start questing what it means to be conservative.

One conservative at a time. The line forms here.