There has been an ocean of discussion about how we reach out to the good-hearted, moderate religious people of America and get them to vote Democratic. I think any attempt to reach the extreme fundamentalist voters--those of the Operation Rescue, Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell ilk--is extremely misguided, but I do think that many moderate churches are reachable. Part of how we reach them involves using the right language.
I've been trying to think about how we frame the discussion and what we talk about, and I remembered a word used very often in the Nebraska Lutheran church in which I grew up. The word is stewardship. For people of faith (of which I am no longer one), the principle of being good stewards of God's world is a primary one. And I don't think anyone here, religious or not, will argue with me that the Bush administration has indeed been the worst possible stewards of this nation's resources, its environment, its young people, and its relationships with the wider world.
I think that, going forward, if we talk with well-meaning people of faith about Bush's failed policies and our own better alternatives in terms of stewardship, it might strike a chord. "Bush's stewardship of the economy has been deeply negligent." "Democrats (or candidate X) will be better stewards of our nation's resources because..."
It's just one piece of a larger puzzle, of course, but as an English major I always tend to think in terms of language. Does anyone else see this as a useful approach?