What do you think that the other side does well?

[Rockefeller GOP]

True leftists are, by and large, extremely passionate and well-researched.  I think they're wrong, and I have a totally different view on the economic world than they do, but I'd never call them stupid or challenge that they don't understand my point of view.

Democrats, at least post-2004, do a much better job at portraying the GOP as *undesirable attribute*, effectively ruining its image.  To unions and the poor, the GOP is described as a greedy third arm of Wall Street that hates poor, hard working Americans.  To minorities, the GOP is portrayed as an all-White party of pitchfork-wielding xenophobes who are more or less the descendants of the Dixiecrats.  To urban professionals and Millennials, they portray the GOP as a backward, rural and racist party full of dumb hicks who have unenlightened views.  They have several groups who are loyal enough to them, for one reason or another, that they can not only get away with this, but trade it in for huge electoral success (even with changing demographics, if the GOP weren't viewed as a party full of religious fundies from the South, it would have picked up enough Northern suburbs voters to win in 2012).