Whoever you are, I challenge you to refute this argument I heard and read in a few places:

"God wants me to vote for Bush."

with anything other than:

"How do you know that?"

or

"No, he doesn't."

Kerry articulated his beliefs just fine - IF people were paying attention.

I submit that it wouldn't have mattered what you said to them. Your most persuasive arguments would not have penetrated the closed-minded and brainwashed.

We do need to be better listeners...one reason I'm going out for a beer with a friend who's a Viet Nam Vet and diehard Republican, after he finishes his visit with his son who's on leave from Iraq.

While we need to be better listeners, we also can't give in on our values, and we need to get our team to be consistent on our values. That's why, for instance, Darlene Hooley should be given no slack for her disgusting anti-tax ad and her continued strong advocacy for eliminating the estate tax, the most progressive tax on the books. That's why we need a real Democrat to run against Ron Wyden in the primary and represent us in the Senate.

Sorry for the lack of a signature... my bad, and it's been fixed.

I'm not saying progressives get the entire population of people who go to church... that would be silly. It wouldn't reflect reality. However, let me suggest that not every person who goes to church buys into the "God wants you to vote for so and so" nonsense. They are not monolithic Pat Robertson devotees. There are a ton of them that would indeed respond to a refutation of the bull that Dems are without values. I say this because I know there are a large portion of these folks that agree with progressives more than they disagree with us.

Iggi-

 I realize that you were generalizing and I certainly understand the need to vent. I got a good,vengeful chuckle out of the rant on F!@# the South...however, I know that vengeance is a self defeating behavior. Tim is addressing that many evangelicals consider our retorts arrogant. People in our party who are hostile to people of faiths, all faiths,simply because they do indeed have spiritual/religious belief systems, are the exact people who are turning off the 60% of Bush voters who label themselves 'religious' . The good news is 40% DIDN'T !! That is a good base to build upon. Leonard Pitts wrote a good column in the O yesterday about the need for the Christian Left to be more vocal and Gary Hart echoed much the same. We as a party believe in the seperation of church and state.Thats good. But to ignore that the spirituals crises of culture and materialism is to put our heads in the sand. The masses know it exists and the Reds due a much better job, unfortunately, of acknowledging it. And yes, while there are a sizable number of religious folk who are "f***king nutjobs" there are also an even greater number who serve meals to the hungry, build housing for the unsheltered, provide hospice at AIDS houses. Some of those very people also voted for Bush because they felt looked down upon by parts of our party. Turning further right certainly isn't the answer. All of the great social movements of our time; voting rights, womens rights, workers rights, civil rights, abolotion, anti war movements etc...have had TREMENDOUS support and momentem from religious communties.Guess what - much of the Gay Marriage movement gets support (moral, legal and sacremental) from churches.All this makes me yearn for Mario Cuomo!

Tim: Your postings always seem solution driven without compromising core beliefs.

"F**king nutjobs" are not found solely in the right wing--which should not have to be pointed out to anyone who reads here regularly.

And anyone arguing that dialog is useless because people who believe differently from them are all uniformly too closed-minded to listen...

Dena and Doretta - well put. We should not - and can not - compromise one inch in our core beliefs. We do, however, have to consider new ways to tell our story. It's a numbers game, and we have to peel off a few thousand people here and there who agree with us more than they disagree with us. "Hard work"? You betcha, but it's what we need to do in order to be on the winnning side next time.

Kerry made no bones about being a devout, practicing Catholic from jump street, and elements of HIS OWN CHURCH savaged him for it, because he was running against George W. Bush, that paragon of Christ's embodiment.

I'd better concentrate on fair elections; I'm likely to bitch-slap the first Christian Republican I get into THIS thing with.

I understand the anger out there towards major segments of the American landscape. My point is not all of them are as bible thumping, homophobic and culpable as some may think. Many of them just got fooled by a slick sales pitch that lead them from their ideals of community and "blessed are the poor." Rather than berate them and threaten them with physical violence, shouldn't we take a deep breath and figure out which ones should be on our side and educate them with ideas that are more in tune with our values as progressives?

I am not too proud to ask for the vote of moderate church-going Republicans who believe more in a sound fiscal policy, a coherent national defense strategy and a solid energy plan over gay marriage bans.

I say fooled because, on balance, many of these folks agree with progressive ideals more than conservative ones. Many of the reachables I am talking about voted against their economic interests in favor of a small cross section of their religious values. We could do a much better job messaging the condequences of the choice. Will we get them all? Hell no. Some? Absolutely.

As to your request... here's a ham handed stab that I invitte people to improve upon. Progressive values favor people over the aggregated power of government and corporations. They favor individual rights to the extent they do not interfere with the public good (i.e. free speech, but no "fire!" in a crowded theater). Hard work is rewarded in a progressive society because progressives celebrate the American dream of rags to riches. Reasonable regulations exist in a progressive society, not to bind innovation and hold people back, but to reasonably protect health, safety, the environment, and minority rights.

That's a start... still can't fit it on a bumper sticker yet though...

I'd add (that is, if I'm allowed back into this discussion), that "liberty and justice for all" are ideals that progressive Americans hold sacred and inviolate.

Further, that "equal protection under the law" is one of the most important ways to secure that liberty and justice.

<h2>That "all [people] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Not just the men. Nor just the white people. Nor just the straight people.</h2>