Michael Brendan Dougherty is right that Paul Ryan’s political evolution is a good thing. Dougherty is also right to wonder if Ryan is right in trying to expand the Republican coalition by emulating “bleeding heart conservative” Jack Kemp. Probably not. Republicans are going to have to win larger margins among younger and nonwhite voters in high turnout elections. They could try to follow Kemp’s softer approach, but the model should be less Kemp’s largely unsuccessful attempts to win over African Americans and more Reagan’s successful attempt to win over urban, unionized, working-class white voters.

Ryan (along with other Republicans like Mike Lee and Marco Rubio) deserves credit for what he gets right. It was absolutely indispensable that Republicans reconstruct their policy program for the present day, and drop their lack of interest in, or contempt for, people under the earnings median. As long as Republicans had a policy agenda centered on high-earner tax cuts, and a message that called non-business owners either inert matter or active parasites, nothing else they did was going to matter. There is no speech and no public relations strategy that will fix those mistakes.

On the other hand, having a relevant policy message and respectfully explaining it to the voters you want to win over is what you are supposed to do. It amounts to just showing up. You can’t win if you don’t show up. The 2008 Detroit Lions showed up too, but didn’t win any games. A better policy agenda and making an attempt to communicate with non-Republicans are first steps, but, by themselves, will get you about zero new votes.

The first thing to keep in mind is that even many young voters and nonwhites with right-leaning policy preferences voted for Obama in the last presidential election. Many of these voters have either a personal or ancestral connection to the Democratic party. While these votes might have right-leaning policy preferences, they likely inhabit social networks where most of what they hear about politics comes from liberal sources. Winning these voters is going to take more than a better tax plan and a better health care plan – though those things are crucial. Winning over those voters is also going to mean hitting these voters with how their values diverge with the values of the national Democratic party. Before they are ready to vote Republican, right-leaning Obama voters are going to need some visceral reasons to oppose the Democrats.

The second thing to keep in mind is the reaction of Democrats and their media allies. Ryan seems to like being seen as a nice guy. Democrats don’t think it is very nice when Republicans try to expand the Republican coalition. Ryan can try to win over nonwhite voters. As long as he is ineffectual, the Democrats will mostly ignore him. They might even patronize him as the exception to the racist Republican rule. But when it is starting to look like Ryan is making progress, Ryan is going to wake up and see a commercial where he lynches somebody. That is just what the national Democrats do. There is no point in expecting better from the party of Harry Reid and Lois Lerner.

Ryan can’t be (just) a nice guy and make substantial gains among nonwhites and younger voters. Think of every harsh (sometimes apocalyptic)Reagan critique of the Democrats, every Reagan jab, every negative ad, that the Republicans of the 1980s used to win over previously Democratic voters. Those were all a legitimate and essential part of the process of winning over the persuadable.

That doesn’t mean that Ryan and other Republicans shouldn’t listen very carefully to the voters they need to win over. They should listen very carefully. They should craft their policy positions very carefully. Republicans should also work just as carefully on their attacks on the opposition. Jack Kemp had a reputation as a nice guy. Kemp liked to talk about how many liberal friends he had. Reagan got to be president.