Raising Kaine has an interesting post on American Values. One of the aricles cited is this one, regarding the cultural debate.
When it came to defining themselves in the nation’s ongoing cultural battles — such as the battle over “family values” — Democrats had virtually ceded the field to Republicans, presenting an uncertain face to the public. Voters, the research showed, were looking to cultural and lifestyle markers to determine whether or not a candidate was, in fact, going to do right by the economy, the Democrats’ one persistently strong area. The Democracy Corps pollsters concluded that voters saw traditional Democratic economic concerns as having little to do with them, being mainly “manifested in costly government social programs or political alliances with labor unions and minorities.” The party’s inattentiveness to cultural matters had, paradoxically, left these voters with “absolutely no sense that Democrats have a viable alternative vision that would truly promote broad economic growth or increased prosperity for working Americans.”
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Despite the increasing political power of the religious right, Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia.
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“While American politics becomes increasingly committed to a brand of conservatism that favors traditionalism, religiosity, and authority,” Adams writes, “the culture at large [is] becoming ever more attached to hedonism, thrill-seeking, and a ruthless, Darwinist understanding of human competition.” This behavior is particularly prevalent among the vast segment of American society that is not politically or civically engaged, and which usually fails to even vote. This has created what must be understood at the electoral level as a politics of backlash on the part of both Republican and Democratic voters: Voters of both parties, Environics data show, have developed an increasingly moralistic politics as a reaction to the new cultural order.
As Leslie Byrne said, it’s all about the 3 Gs: God, Gays and Guns. I wonder how we ended up here. How can we get the conversation to other things, such as transportation and health care?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Ms. Paige,Thank you for your comments. I cited that article in my article at RaisingKaine because it is the first in depth explanation of what we have all noticed (with regret) about the change in tone of political discourse in America, and the increasingly intransigent, hard edge to public life. At my older age I am very conscious of the sea change in mind set across the age spectrum, but especially among the rising generations, and I think it bodes ill for our entire system of government. I, too, would like to get back to the major problems and crises which have been trumped repeatedly by what I can only describe as a rising sharia of the Right Wing. It is my expectation that James Webb will, if anyone can, be able to change the terms of debate and thus change the rules of engagement.
Teddy
I thoroughly enjoyed your article. I don’t know if one person against the tide can change the conversation alone, but a single voice is better than none at all. It is how you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.