It's perhaps a minor point, but when people criticize Obama's remarks in San Fransisco they tend to characterize his view as being, as Paul Krugman expresses it in this morning's column, that people "cling to religion out of economic frustration". Hillary gave it a similar spin (perhaps even innocently) in the debate Wednesday. I don't believe the point has been made clearly or forcefully enough that Obama was not saying that people cling to religion out of economic frustration. He was saying that people gravitate towards that within the political sphere which corresponds to that which gives their life balast, i.e. religion.
It's a subtle point, and I'm guessing there's some technical term in formal logic that would make the distinction clearer still. I think this is a point that needs to be developed, because when people attack Obama on this issue they are attacking a straw dog. There's a difference between people going to church in good times or bad, and those same people voting the ticket that employs symbols and language that resonate with that which they know and trust.
I think there must be a clear way to make this distinction, but so far it seems that critics have been allowed to get away with this basic mischaracterization because of its truthiness. People clinging to religion is one thing. People zeroing in on its avatar in the political sphere is something entirely different.