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“but how do they help the old lady down the street who really is trying to find some way to pay for her prescriptions?”

Well you just made my point. The Medicare Drug issue like the universal health care issue was lost long before the bill was written. The left started with the grandma eating dog food stories back in the 90’s. It became a throw away comment on many TV shows, dramas and comedies. Oprah and her ilk made sure that at least a couple of times a year they had a sob story on to humanize the issue. By the time it came to vote it was no longer a question of whether it was a good idea to offer the program, or whether there was better ways to address the issue than another huge expensive government handout, but rather how big a program we were going to be saddled with and who was going to be taxed to pay for it.

By your argument every liberal agenda item makes sense and should be passed. We can always find someone who is hurting that a government program could help. Lord they included $90M in the stimulus program to provide one-on-one education to people having trouble dealing with the digital TV change, because after all everyone deserves to have good TV reception. I am sure my friend is elated that Obama won. She will soon see all her liberal concerned addressed at the expense of the “evil” rich.

“I think I’m like most people, in that I tend to be more favorably disposed toward the person who offers to help me solve my current problem”

Well then you should be very comfortable with OBama and Nancy because as long as you are not “wealthy” they are going to help you solve all your problems, of course at someone else’s expense. Oops there I go again with another one of those nasty little conservative theories, personal responsibility.

By your argument every liberal agenda item makes sense and should be passed.

I didn't come close to saying that. You're presenting a strawman.

What I said was that old folks really are having trouble meeting their medical expenses, and that's a fact. And that fact has serious political implications.

That brings to mind one of Saul Alinksy's central insights, which was that real problems, if left unaddressed by "the establishment," can be exploited for one's own political ends.

The left knows that, but we conservatives tend to address such real issues with some lofty theory or other -- the correctness of which does nothing to help the old lady who's having money trouble today. She doesn't give a damn about your theories, and neither do her family and friends. What they do care about, is that gramma gets the medical attention they think she needs.

As a matter of politics -- not to mention moral responsibility -- conservatives need to find some way to address that kind of dynamic without sacrificing the essential principles of conservatism (whatever they may be). Unfortunately, we haven't figured out a way to do that.... It's a tremendously thorny problem.

That leaves the field open for liberals who promise to "help." (And for "conservatives" who try to fix things by acting the same way.)

That doesn't mean that their "help" will actually solve the underlying problem, and you're quite correct that it almost certainly leads worse problems than the original.

But to the old lady down the street, and her friends and relatives, there is still that present problem of how to afford (say) her prescription. Those issues, not your conservative theories, are what define how a lot of folks vote.

For conservatives to be successful -- as Reagan was -- the old lady's problem has to be addressed by something other than theoretical pronouncements. We've so far failed to do so, and your friend knows it. She sees a problem in need of a solution; you see a theory that ought to be implemented. What you call her "emotional" argument is actually something more than that: it's a recognition of a real problem that you (we) are inclined to gloss over.