Yup that is the Democrats weak spots, but money beats culture almost every time. And remember Bill Clinton tried to form a "new democrat" party out of the old liberal party. He tried to move his party to right, Hillary is doing the same. If the democrats can rid themselves of more obscene culture warriors like Micheal Moore, Homosexuals and such and present itself as a "working mans" party and paint the GOP as the party of Wall Street not Main Street, then the GOP will be removed from power in a Tsunami of party realignment more powerful then the realignment to the Contract with America GOP in 94. The GOP needs t remember just who brought them the dance.
Unfortunately I do not see that happening under Bush. Bush is a good man, just like his father, but totally out of touch with the country.
A lot of Republicans have forgotten that the Religious Right were all New Deal Democrats a generation ago. A lot of them will listen to an appeal to economic populism. Gay marriage and abortion matter but they don't pay the rent.
The problem with the "New Democrats" is that they did not give a damn about the economic interests of non-college educated, blue collar Americans (the Democratic base). After all, couldn't they just go to community college and learn HTML ? NAFTA was a decision to expend their well being to those of knowledge worker professionals. Blue collar Americans responded by voting their cultural conservatism and abandoning the Democratic Party.
Hillary is smart enough to realize that NAFTA was a worthless "victory". A "victory" over your own base does not make you stronger. It cost the Democratic Party the voters who might have given Gephardt (who could have beaten Bush) a fighting chance in the primaries. Without economic populism (anti illegals, anti outsourcing, anti "free trade at all costs) the Democratic Party has only latte liberals, not the blue collar voters it needs to become the majority party.