And I wholly agree that the privacy framing is a long-haul effort, although I do think it serves as a rallying point for the Left.

Excellent point and why Obama is correct on strategy but a complete arse on substance.

From my experience in the US, Obama is correct that many American voters shy away from partisanship and pin for a "return" to an idealized consensual "bipartisanhip" that never really existed. But he completely misses that the debate always happen at two levels, the general public and the base, and the terms are very different. The Republicans understand that very well and have played it for years with the outward message of "compassionate conservatism" or whatever to the general voters and the paranoid discourse to the base, "Christianity under attack" and all that crap.

I'm floored that Obama doesn't understand that, or at least, refuse to acknowledge it publicly. The big difference with the top-down Republican model is that the Democratic base is in charge of the internal debate.

And yeah, Democrats, even the atheists, should pray everyday for the repeal of Roe vs. Wade by the SCOTUS. If that happens, the Republican party is gone, finished, cooked and pitch a fork in it for at least 30 years.