Picking the low-lying fruit would have lost us the harvest.

Jonathan Singer at MyDD dissects the idea Democrats needed to tweak their message to include Evangelicals in order to win the election.

"One of the bits of common wisdom that emerged during the period between the last two elections was that White Evangelical voters were the key to George W. Bush's reelection and thus the Democrats would need to actively court such voters if they were interested in winning in future contests. To this end, it was thought that the Democrats should find issues upon which they agreed with such "faith voters", most notably the environment.

If November 7 showed us anything, it was that the Democrats clearly do not need the suppport of Evangelical voters in order to create an electoral majority. And a report by Neela Banerjee in today's issue of The New York Times should put to rest the theory that the religious right is at all interested forging any semblence of compromise or comity with progressives, be it on social issues or even issues such as the environment."

[snip]

"While some will no doubt continue to tell us that the Democrats that they need to give up on some of their issues (particularly ones relatiing to abortion and equal rights for all Americans, including homosexuals) and that can steal away "faith voters" from the Republicans by appealing on issues like the environment, it should be plain to any serious watcher of politics that not only do the Democrats not need to do this but that by doing so the Democrats threaten to lose whatever gains they made earlier this week. That is not to say that the Democrats should not keep an open tent, but only that the so-called "low-lying fruit" among Evangelicals (those who theoretically are aching to vote Democratic -- but only if there is outreach) aren't quite as low-lying as many believe."