I think Obama should spend less time courting people who want government to regulate and legislate the most personal areas of our lives, and more time courting people who care about the health and welfare of the democracy so we can do something about it before it erodes any further.  What about those values?  Do they not count?  We are, after all, electing a president, not a bishop - a head of state, not a head of religion.

For the life of me, I do not understand why Democrats - and Obama in particular - are so afraid to talk about doing the right thing because it is the right thing; people of faith can recognize morality and values even when those things are not wrapped in a religious package - so why not appeal to people's sense of right and wrong - regardless of whether that sense comes from their church or their heart, instead of trying to speak in a kind of code that says "see, I'm really one of you?"

to assert that one particular group somehow has a monopoly on "values" is arrogance in the extreme. i have values (as well as "deeply held personal beliefs"), you have values, she has values, we all have values. while they might not necessarily be the same values, they are values nonetheless.

therein lies the flaw in the plan to appeal to "values" voters: who's "values" are you going to appeal to, and who's are you going to ignore?
i consider my values to be every bit as legitimate as the fundamentalist's down the street, and take some offense at the implication that sen. obama should think otherwise.

Could you link to an example of Obama calling these people values voters? Or claiming that he is reaching out to them in order to raise the moral quotient of our party?

Did I say it was Obama using the term "values voter?"  No, I did not.  The term is, however, in the title of the post, and I think I'm allowed to express my dislike of the term..  

Now, you tell me what effect it has, what message it sends about Democrats, when Obama says that "the problem" with many pro-choice people is that they don't understand the wrenching moral choice that abortion presents.  Tell me that that kind of reaching out does not send a message that the "right kind" of voters could school the rest of us on moral issues.

It is the media that refers to these people as "values voters", not Obama. And he is reaching out to them because they are a constituency that might be flipped, given that they have a lot of disappointment in the economic, administrative and war-prosectuing performance of the GOP.

Then let him flip those voters on the basis of the policies and positions he holds on the economy and the war - not on the basis of religious dog-whistling.

When you make an electoral appeal to people, you do so in the language they feel comfortable with, or else you probably shouldnt waste your time. I dont see what is wrong with him using references that are part of his own worldview anyway, and which facilitate getting his political message across to these people.

Sorry, but you don't have to play rhetorical games like this to appeal to people.  I don't care what someone's religion is - people understand that gas and food and education are too expensive, they understand that torture is wrong, they understand that people should be able to count on the food they eat and the drugs they take being safe, they understand that we have rights and privileges that are supposed to prevent the government from invading their privacy unless they have the requisite authority to do so, they understand that we need to have fewer secrets, more transparency and accountability.  Why do we have to speak in code in order to gain the trust and support of the voters?

I also have never had the sense that Obama feels there is anything wrong with non-religous people. Are you just assuming that when he speaks in religous terms, he is implicitly criticizing non-believers, or do you have some explicit diss in mind?

Oh, the old "not that there's anything wrong with that" approach.  Swell - that always works.

We are not electing a religious leader, we are electing a president, which is a non-sectarian position.  When he frames issues in religious terms - issues that don't have to be framed that way - he may think that what he is doing is relating to people, but what he is really doing is elevating the religious over the non-religious, and that, in my opinion, is wrong for someone to do who is running for a non-religious position.

Since when do all people who read the Left Behind series want to bomb Saudi's. You came out of left field with that one bro. As a young white male who believes in God, I will not vote for Obama simply because I do not trust him, I do not want a goverment controlled everything and I do not agree with his stances morally.

This does not mean I am "Far Right" or Value Voter or whatever heck I am categorized in.
It simply means Obama and I don't see eye to eye.
I am not racist, and I live in the South.

If John McCain was Black I would still vote for him. This is not about Race to me. It is about Character, issues and morals. It saddens me that we will have a huge Black turn out simply because the man is Black. People are paying less attention to politics and more to speeches.

It's got to have some value to drive a wedge like this between the social-justice evangelicals (the "new evangelicals") and the family-values evangelicals. The Spectator sees it. Even the normally clueless Amy Sullivan has a few interesting observations on the position it puts McCain and the GOP into in her last section on the GOP response.