Sen. Sam Brownback's aborted campaign for president is not just about his campaign's failure — it is a sure sign that America is a far more moderate to socially liberal country than many people dare believe. A CBS poll released last night shows traditional social conservative issues, opposition to abortion and gay rights, are the two least important issues for all voters, including evangelicals. As many evangelical leaders gather in DC for a convention on the day Brownback withdraws, the reality is hitting home.

Brownback's dismal fundraising, nasty campaign tactics and inability to place above "none of these" in most polls is forcing him out. Most pundits never took him seriously as a contender and will likely miss the larger story his campaign's failure highlights. The logical beneficiary of the ten Brownback voters in Iowa is Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose "I'm conservative, I'm just not angry about it," campaign is the only natural home for truly social conservative voters. But even Huckabee, though he is moving up, has yet to demonstrate the power we've been led to believe social conservatives hold.

As the prodigal son of the social conservative movement, a converted Opus Dei Catholic with evangelical roots passionately opposed to abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research, Brownback was the ideal candidate on paper. Young, with a large and loving family from the heartland, his record in Congress couldn't have been better had Dr. James Dobson been voting himself.

But social conservatives want to back a winner and they are learning this primary season that their vaunted ideals and their alleged moral superiority, personified by Brownback, are not winning issues.

In fact, Rudy Giuliani's masterful campaign proves that within the Republican Party, many Republicans prefer a socially liberal candidate, when given the choice. Rudy still has many hurdles to clear, obstacles placed by a generation of social conservative organizing, but the fact he is closing in on Sen. Hillary Clinton in national polls leaves social conservatives, not happy with any of the candidates according to the CBS poll, scratching their heads.

The only thing social conservatives care about, in truth, are the two or three U.S. Supreme Court justices the next President will likely select. Can they count on Rudy Giuliani to deliver, or do they fear another Stephen Breyer, appointed by Bush 41? Can Giuliani, a social liberal, abandon his convictions and appoint justices counter to his own beliefs?

Majorities of Americans never supported the narrow agenda of social conservatism, though with its rise in the 1970s came the belief that most Americans did. As Brownback heads home to Kansas, his defeat demands people pay attention to the men pulling the levers of power behind the social conservative curtain. They were, are, and always will be masters of illusion.

For the past generation, moderate Republicans couldn't promote candidates to the national ticket that asserted America is largely moderate on social issues like abortion. The social conservative mantra became self-fulfilling prophesy: you can't win without us, so you must adopt our narrow agenda. Even some Democrats abandoned sound principles – for instance, to leave private medical decisions between doctors and patients, to support equality for all Americans, failing to put an end to abstinence-only programs or override a veto on SCHIP. Even in the majority Democrats cower in the face of social conservatives, flexing moderate muscles that abandon progressive principles.

But in the free marketplace of ideas, in a wide open election with no heir apparent to the nomination or the White House, it is Rudy Giuliani, pro-choice and pro-gay rights, who is winning the hearts and minds of GOP voters, and who could appeal to independent voters that many Democrats assume will be theirs because of the failures of Bush 43. Can Democrats win in an election about change if the most dramatic change happens within the GOP?

As Dr. James Dobson mutters about countering a Giuliani nomination with a social conservative third party candidate, what he fails to realize is that evangelical voters, in discovering politics, found other issues are also important.

The narrow focus on social issues ignores economic policies that are against their individual interest as families with socially conservative values work harder to make ends meet. The narrow social agenda does not make sense as our military, stretched too thin fighting a war based on lies, demonstrates that patriotism must also mean speaking out against government when it is wrong. It no longer makes sense to vote only on single-issue interests when the climate is changing because of rampant consumerism and policies that ignore our duty to be stewards of the planet. Narrow agendas aren't appealing as most Americans believe President Bush, identified as the social conservative standard bearer, is leading the nation in the wrong direction.

Evangelical voters certainly have a conservatizing influence on an electorate that is more socially moderate, and when moderate people don't vote, social conservative influence is disproportionate. That fact created the myths that exaggerated their influence. But evangelical voters are no longer monolithic. Many understand the best way to prevent abortion is through education, contraception and better communication. Others support the life-saving potential of stem cell research. Some support their gay neighbors, friends and colleagues who simply ask to be treated equally under the law.

The people who perfected wedge politics — social conservatives — are discovering the growing wedges between leaders like Dobson and the increasingly independent conservative base.

Perhaps Sen. Brownback is positioning himself to be Dobson's standard bearer for the Social Conservative Republican American Party (SCRAP), but Dobson's saber rattling is just that. To mount a third party candidate who would fare no better in a general election than Brownback did in the primaries would prove just how marginalized the anti-reproductive health, anti-gay rights, anti-stem cell research agenda is when left standing on its own. Dobson is better off when he tries to scare Giuliani, moderates and some Democrats by manipulating smoke and mirrors.

The truth is Rudy Giuliani doesn't need social conservatives as much as they need him. How the Democrats rethink their 2008 strategy in the face of a potentially moderate GOP nominee will be fascinating to watch.