The larger problem for the Democrats is that liberalism itself, or what we erroneously call liberalism today, is in a crisis. It recognizes that politics must have an underlying morality to it, but it is antagonistic to traditional morality. This is foolish since our greatest political movements — abolitionism, civil rights, etc. — were religious before they were political. Moreover, attempts to construct new, secular, moralities have been failures, even at the seminar level. At the national level (think feminism, Hillary Clinton's "Politics of Meaning," socialism, etc.), they've been non-starters.
Conservatives, and the GOP, are not without their problems. But they're not embarrassed by traditional authority and religion. Democrats, meanwhile, don't need to get religion, but they do need to "get" religion if they're going to climb out of their hole.
