Yesterday, conservative bloggers had their turn to express shock at their opponents’ platform: In a reversal of tradition, the Democrats had failed to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and declined to include the word “God” anywhere in the document.

Party officials quickly realized that this decision was unlikely to play well among average Americans, so Governor Ted Strickland took to the floor to offer an amendment reaffirming the role of religion in American life and the Democratic Party’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

When he asked the floor for a voice vote to affirm the amendment by a two-thirds majority, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa didn’t quite receive the response that he expected:

The floor did not want to approve the amendment! Instead, they seemed split down the middle, a perfect 50/50. Arab-American delegates seemed particularly opposed, from the looks of the video.

The mayor, shocked, tried again twice to summon a two-thirds majority, but eventually just gave up and affirmed the amendment anyway, to loud murmuring from the crowd.

As a non-believer, what astonishes me about this isn’t that the Democratic Party doesn’t want to recognize the role of religion in American life — but it’s shocking to me that the delegates don’t understand the role of language like this in building majority coalitions. It’s almost as if they want to alienate average Americans — or at least put their own ideology above party-building and forging consensus. If Democratic activists want to call Republicans out-of-touch, they need to at least admit that they’re only speaking from a takes-one-to-know-one perspective.