Barack Obama’s made a couple of serious plays for evangelical/culturally conservative support in the last week–unveiling his plans to expand George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initatiatves and asserting that mental distress should not be legal grounds for women to skirt abortion restrictions–but they’ve wound up drawing lots of criticism from the Religious Right and surprisingly few attacks from the left. But liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert says the same left flank that catapulted Obama into the general election is growing disillusioned:

So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it….
“What’s he doing?” is the most common question heard recently from Obama supporters.
For one thing, he’s taking his base for granted, apparently believing that such stalwart supporters as blacks, progressives and pumped-up younger voters will be with him no matter what. A taste of the backlash this can produce erupted on the candidate’s own Web site.

So far, Herbert is more a voice in the liberal wilderness than a spokesman for millions of disgruntled lefties. Let’s see if is column prompts other jilted liberals to raise their voices.

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