Just heard Simon Rosenberg and Harold Ickes on CSPAN (sorry can't find the link as of yet). Totally agreed with their point of view (this is not about only message it is about infrastructre -- the GOPs have a better one, still).
However, in the course of the conservation, some insane values voter called up and said "You just don't get it, Clinton and Hollywood are ruining this country, you have no values, you want Gays to marry, etc."
It was a wonderful example of what we are up against. Rosenberg, elsewhere in the conservation, made the oblique point that because we don't control the filter, morons like this are fed facts that feed their racist and hateful impulses.
However, when they responded to this lady, they opted to not take her on. It thought this was instructive. Limbaugh, O'Reilly would have belittled this moron (so would Stern) and our guys just let the challenge go unanswered, seemingly assuming that "reasonable" people will see the truth (forgetting that many folks are clearly not thinking reasonable these days).
Instead, our spokespeople should go right at these rascists and say that "ma'am you are spewing hatred and racism and I will not tolerate this. Do you call yourself a Christian? How can you call yourself a Christian and have these beliefs."
Rosenberg and Ickes will initially get slaughterd in the SCLM for doing this (look what happened to Dean when he challenged that asshole rally guy in Iowa) but who cares. We don't listen to that crap and just keep on doing it.
It was like seeing MIchael Dukakis respond to Bernie Shaws' question and makes me concerned that our guys really do not get it.
It is not about values -- it is about hating the other side (and we need to start doing this and make it hard for moderate Dems and Repubs to stay with these a-holes).