I think we're seeing two different arguments being made here.
One argument is that “social issues” are irrelevant to people who can't pay their bills and aren't having their basic needs met.
The other argument is that non-Christian cultures have at various times in the past been more economically successful than Western Europe.
The second argument is obviously true and I don't dispute it. I would point out that cultural forms of “civic morality” which promote family values, respect for authority, and not stealing your neighbor's property or trying to kill him are **STILL** transcendent moral values and are at radical variance with modern Western amoral liberalism or libertarianism.
As for the relevance of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — tell that to the martyred Christians under Nero or the Jews who died at Masada. Tell that even to secular American liberals who opposed the German Third Reich and fought for American freedom during World War II. There are some things which are far more important than food, shelter, or life itself, and even someone who **DOESN'T** believe in transcendent moral values can believe there are things worth dying for.
AND subsequently worth voting for. RINOs abandoning the moral values worth dying for abandon the voters that would vote for them today rather than die for them tomorrow. REGARDLESS the RINO sellouts -people will eventually revolt and reclaim the issues that the RINOs abandon. In the Tea Party we see the beginnings of this.
What differences do you attribute to "Judeo-Christian morality" in contrast to "Christian morality"?