I haven' played this seriously until the latest release. I managed to get the victory with almost no violence. I found that it's entirely possible to recruit members of the CCS, Police Officers, Soldiers, and CIA agents just by talking about the issues, when you have persuasion at 20.
Things didn't really get interesting until the first Liberal president was elected, and the CCS was founded. Had a few laws shifted to Liberal, but beyond that, everything was still more or less right leaning. After a while, the CCS starting getting annoying, just by the sheer number of strikes and such. I called the last straw when they car bombed my hideout.
So, I found a member, recruited him by talking about the issues, and found their safehouse. Then, in there, I recruited five soldiers and a mercenary. Armed to the teeth, all the soldiers in Army Body Armor. Then I used them to shut down the CCS safe houses systematically. When the last one fell, and the police raided them, I gave them up. I had a lot of sleeper judges and lawyers through kidnapping, so I managed to get half of them off the hook. I immediately set them to community service.
The rest played out smoothly. After I was at the point where I could just walk up to and convince Radio Personalities, News Anchors, Corporate CEOs, and Eminent Scientists to heed my beck and call, getting to the end was simple. The whole game with almost no real violence apart from shutting down the CCS. I never even beat the people I kidnapped, but I always got them on my side before their disappearance hit the news.
Great fun.