This is an important insight and really should be at the center of the discussion we are having about political strategies for the Democratic Party. In Tom Schaller's much discussed book "Whistling Past Dixie," I think the central point of his thesis has been largely overlooked. I wrote:

Ed [Kilgore]'s reply is a touchstone to me on why the 50 State Strategy can work in Dixie and why, as Chris suggests, we can all get along:

Armando seizes on my commentary about southern suburban moderates as a Dem target to suggest that maybe the belief that "values voters" are the key to the South is wrong.

Well, that depends on your definition of "values voters." If it means people who want to criminalize abortions, demonize gays and lesbians, or institutionalize evangelical Christianity, then no, suburban southerners don't generally fit that category, and I'd personally write them off as targets even if that were the case, on both practical and moral grounds.

My own (and generally, the DLC's) definition of "values voters" is quite different. They are people who: (a) don't must trust politicians, and want to know they care about something larger than themselves, their party, and the interest groups that support them; (b) don't much trust government, and instinctively gravitate towards candidates who seem to care about the role that civic and religious institutions can play in public life; © don't much trust elites, whom they suspect do not and cannot commit themselves to any particular set of moral absolutes; (d) don't much like the general direction of contemporary culture (even if they are attracted to it as consumers), and want to know public officials treat that concern with respect and a limited agenda to do something about it; (e) are exquisitely sensitive about respect for particular values like patriotism, parenting and work; and (f) have a communitarian bent when it comes to cultural issues, and dislike those who view them strictly through the prism of the irresistable march towards absolute and universal individual rights without regard to social implications.

By that definition, I think southern suburban moderates, and especially women in that demographic, are definitely "values voters." In answer to Armando's particular question about how suburban southerners would react to that wingnut in Kansas who wants to explore the sexual histories of women seeking abortions, I think the simple answer is that they would say: "Mind your own business, boy! Aren't there some criminals out there you ought to be chasing?"

It is the moderate voter across the country who is rejecting Republican extremism and embracing this new broader based populism Emanuel Edsall identify. Democrats have begun to win the battlle for these voters not by being more like Republicans, but being less like them, by being willing to fight against their extremism and by putting the Common Good and the Common Man first.

In his piece on Schaller's book, Scott Winship follows this line of thought:

As a New Democrat, I was initially nervous about Tom's thesis because I thought he was saying Democrats don't have to appeal to moderates. I then realized that he wasn't so much arguing that we not appeal to moderates as he was arguing that we not justify such a strategy by citing the need to win in the South. I wouldn't disagree with this advice, but it's a much more subtle message than "We don't have to appeal to moderates." In practice, I worry that many liberals will miss the subtlety and draw the conclusion that is most convenient for their ideological views. But of course, the biggest improvement Democrats saw this year was among moderates and Independents. My boss, Bill Galston, and Elaine Kamarck have persuasively shown that Democrats have to win a supermajority of moderates in order to win presidential elections, given the number of liberals and conservatives in the electorate. . . .So I guess my question for Tom is: Would you object to the alternate slogan, "Ignore the South, but Don't Ignore Moderates or the Possibility of Winning the South." Aside from the fact that it's the most unwieldy phrase I've ever written.

Winship asks a question Schaller has already answered - be Democrats, pragmatic, committed to the Common Good and the Common Man and do not waste time trying to compete with Republicans for reactionary voters - a large segment of whom are found in the South. Schaller argued about the South because that is how the DLC and the New Democrats framed it. Schaller's point was appeal to the middle by being true to your Dem values which will appeal to Moderates over Republican extremism. Of course that is my Lincoln 1860 strategy.

Everyone has their own way of saying it but I think it is becoming clear that a Politics of Contrast/Lincoln 1860 political strategy is becoming the approach a consensus will support in the Democratic Party. There are outliers like Barack Obama and Jim Wallis and I guess Joe Biden and others. But I think that they will fall in line or fall behind. I feel confident that the two year fight to make Dems Fighting Dems politically (governance is another issue and I believe in pragmatic liberalism there) - willing to take on GOP extremism and highlight the Dem commitment to the Common Man and the Common Good has been and will continue to be successful. And the Netroots was at the forefront of the fight.