About "The People's Republic of Santa Monica"

I believe that the biggest reason why the GOP is in decline in California is because of a hard-headed and hard-hearted elitism which readily, yet unjustifiably assumes that liberal or "leftist" voters cannot be talked to.

I have attended some GOP meetings in the past, and I hear a lot about "the enemy."

Yet even the self-styled Progressive James Preston Allen of San Pedro's Random Lengths News has expressed a desire for more local control for the LA Harbor region, an argument which meshed very nicely with limited government conservatives. I have respected his views on the role of bond-swapping and bankrupting costs in city governments, although his attachment to union power is still disconcerting.

Many people are conservatives, yet they just do not know it. The outrage that the "Occupy Movement" feels about crony capitalist collusions with corporate interest is legitimate, but the solution to these problems is where the differences lie.

Conservatives need to adopt the same attitude as Milton Friedman, the free market capitalist who numbered among his students the ex-Marxist Thomas Sowell, a Stanford economist whose  glowing appreciation for his former mentor appeared in print the previous week. The most telling aspect of Friedman's seminars, according to Sowell, was that Friedman pledged that he would not try to change the views of his students. Sowell acknowledged in the same article that the real world, not the academic world, change his view on economics and politics.

The same basis should hold sway for every conservative reaching out to "independents" or Democrats who can article the views that they stand by as opposed to their staunch loyalty to candidate and party. We do not have to force anyone to change their minds. Much of the time, when I ask someone to share their points of view for supporting a Democratic candidate, they readily admit that they do not like Henry Waxman, or they take into account that Bloomfield's platform supports their views just as well.

With this line of reasoning in mind, I implore every conservative, Republican, and Tea Party patriot in the Beach Cities and throughout the Santa Monica Bay to adopt a different attitude about our fellow constituents north of Dockweiler Beach. I have met and talked with Republicans, Independents, and even a Democrat or two who were willing to listen to a different point of view and consider a different candidate.

Monikers like "The People's Republic of Santa Monica" belong on talk radio, not in one-on-one discussion. Forget about parties and candidates -- discuss ideas. Find the common ground with the people that you talk to, for if they know that someone else is interested in hearing their point of view without going on the attack or getting defensive, then perhaps you can have the same success which I have had, getting some independents and Democrats to think about voting for Bill Bloomfield, and Independent who wants to cross party lines to compromise on important issues, to get Congress working again, and to break us free from the reckless deficit spending which is not informing our environmental or energy policies in any  meaningful way.