My advice to Democratic and Republican insiders is that they should stop falling for their own traditional talking points. It's understandable if you keep spouting them in public, but it's inane to believe your own propaganda in private.

For example, Democrats think they are against increasing inequalities in wealth, while standard Republican ideology suggests they should be suspicious of public schools. Republicans, however, should keep in mind that there's a famous city that has so many rich people and has public schools so dysfunctional that a full 30% of children attend private schools, roughly triple the national average. You would think this bastion of "school choice" would be a friendly to Republican candidates. But, it's not. It is ...

San Francisco.

A study of census data by the New York Times found that in San Francisco the 50th percentile of income for non-Hispanic white parents of small children fell at $150,763. That explains a lot about why the City by the Bay is last in the country in percentage of residents under 18, below even retirement havens such as Palm Beach.

Similarly, Democrats denounce economic inequality while Republicans defend it. Yet, in states where inequality has grown substantially over the years, such as California and the Wall Street states around New York City, Democrats have done increasingly well for themselves. California used to be a paradise for the common man, but now it resembles Latin America in its inequalities.

In contrast, Republicans do best in the Great Basin and Great Plains, where economic and social equality is most pervasive.

Indeed, Republican candidates seem to do best in those places where people are most satisfied with their kids' public schools, where middle class parents feel they won't be damaging their own children by subjecting them to the public schools. By lifting one of the fearsome expenses of bourgeois family life, good public schools raise the odds that middle class people will make the transition at a younger age and in greater numbers from single Democrat to married Republican.

My advice to Democrats is to study how California has become so family-unfriendly, with its low wages and high land costs, and then Californicate the rest of the country. California's descent in recent decades into inequality, unaffordable housing, and bad schools (California now ranks in the bottom tier, just above Mississippi, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests) has been very, very good for the national Democratic Party.

Democrats might not much like the country they will wind up with, but the Democratic Party will win lots of elections.

And isn't that what really counts?.

Republicans should also study California, as an example of what not to do. Ben Franklin explained in 1751 that human beings are happiest where land is cheap and labor is dear, so family formation is affordable. Yet, Bush and McCain, both enthusiasts for mass immigration, favored increasing the supply of labor and increasing the demand for land. By the Law of Supply and Demand that translates, all else being equal, into lower wages and higher housing costs, which is exactly what we got during the recent Housing Bubble.

So, how's that grand strategy working out for you Republicans lately?

Franklin advocated immigration restriction 258 years ago. Maybe that was a little premature, but old Ben understood the basic concepts of supply and demand. John McCain sure didn't.

Of course, if Republican elites start finally doing something to make family formation more affordable, such as paying unemployed illegal immigrants to go home, they'll be denounced as racists. But, they are denounced as racists anyway. So, it's time for Republicans to study the wisdom of Ben Franklin.