Ohio is a key Republican state that Bush carried by the skin of his teeth. Had Kerry ignored the consultants and run harder on economic populism there would probably be American troops in Clichy sur Bois right now. A party combining economic and cultural populism could dominate American politics.
I agree. But this does not mean that YOUR party should resort to pandering. Fascists did that and won the elections, but that brought incredible misery to the German people and the rest of the world. Pandering can win, but that does not mean that Republicans should adopt it.
Moreover, pandering works only when the public is uninformed. And our public is very much uninformed: even the conservatives on this board are largely ignorant about functioning of the markets and have a huge anti-corporate bias. They may be conservatives in everything else, but when it comes to economics many are straight, run-of-the-mull socialists. That is why pandering may work in 2008.
But the answer is not to compete on who will do more of it: conservatives at least should know how their country works and what has made it prosperous.