Thursday, November 25, 2004

Aspirin for a Post-Election Hangover

Never trust a first impression.

Maybe that's the biggest lesson to take from all the apoplectic post-election hand-winging from the Left about how "values" supposedly swept Dubya back into office for a second term. Hell, I bought into it, too, swallowing all the election analysis that "moral values" were the central concern for 22 percent of the electorate, the vast majority of whom supported Bush.

And, yes, it made me feel pretty lousy about the direction this country was taking. Reasonable people can disagree about a number of social issues, of course -- abortion, gun control, etc. -- but it was a sobering notion that the "values" being bandied about by some of the truly crazed on the outside lane of the Religions Right (gays=bad, non-Christians=bad, foreigners=bad) really motivated that many voters.

Thankfully, a crop of post-Nov. 2 information questions the weight that "moral values" actually played.

First, let's take a deep breath and take note that, whaddya know, the electoral map of 2004 looks virtually the same as it did in 2000. While the gay marriage ban that appeared on the ballot in 11 states was undoubtedly employed as a wedge issue to separate the manly men Republicans from them sissified Democrats, Andrew Sullivan rightly points out that only three of the 11 were so-called "swing" states -- and Kerry won two of the three (OK, so that elusive third was the pivotal Ohio, but still....) And the overwhelming majority of the nation still supports civil unions for same-sex couples, or at least that's what they're telling pollsters.

The Nov. 22 issue of Time tackles the "folklore" of the 2004 election, including the misperception that churchgoers dominated the polls. The magazine notes that Democratic pollster Geoffery Garin found that the portion of the '04 electorate attending church at least once a week was 42 percent, the same percentage that turned out four years ago. In fact, Garin adds, Bush's support in that group rose by only 1 percent. He actually increased his support among the group of voters who never go to church, witnessing an increase of 4 percentage points.

The magazine goes on:

"Though 22 percent cited their moral values as the deciding issue, the percentage that cited one of the two biggest foreign policy issues, Iraq and terrorism, was significantly higher -- 34 percent. And it turns out that a 'moral value' is in the conscience of the beholder. In a poll due out this week from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, 42 percent of respondents said the war in Iraq was the most important moral issue influencing their vote, compared with 13 percent who chose abortion and less than 10 percent who chose gay marriage."

Maybe I should have realized as such. Most of my Republican friends who voted for Bush did so chiefly because of what they perceive as his resolve in the war on terrah (read: terror) and not because they have any hidden desire to beat puppies.

Anyway, it's not New Year's yet, but I've got a new resolution. I'm gonna try not to sweat it that we've got four more years of Dubya. Perhaps Tom Wolfe put it best. "This country is so centrist, we're not really going to go wrong whoever's elected," he wrote in a recent Rolling Stone. "Our government is like a train on a track: People yell at it from the left, and they yell at from the right, but the train goes right down the middle where the tracks are."



5 Comments:

At 3:07 PM, Blogger RedDirt said...

Okay, I hate to say I told you so... but I did tell you so... and thanks for referencing me in the post... I think you were probably referring to two things I wrote in weeks past...

On November 8, I wrote: "Though even publications like Slate are doubtful that 'values voters' really turned this election, the mainstream media is nonetheless towing the line that this year's victory for the Republicans turned on the 'Revenge of the Rednecks.' Of course, as columnist Mark Steyn has pointed out, this ignores the 45 % of Hispanics, 25% of Jewish Americans and 23% of gay people who voted for Bush. But I suppose in the Democrats' eyes, they're rednecks too."

On November 6 I wrote: "Personally, I think the "values voter" phenomenon may be overblown. After all, this latest premise of the election turning on values is coming from exit polls, and we all know how wrong those were. I think there were plenty of Democrats and undecided voters who told their peers they were going to vote for Kerry, because that was the socially-acceptable thing to say. But when they entered the silent and sacred space of the polling booth, they voted for Bush instead. These voters didn't vote for Bush on gay marriage or abortion. They voted on security. And no one was the wiser. Afterward, they could go back to their friends and go right on pretending to be frightened by Bush, all the while secretly being comforted by him."

 
At 3:14 PM, Blogger Chase McInerney said...

Damn, you're fast.

 
At 9:32 AM, Blogger Tim Chapman said...

This problem is perpetuated by the interests of the MSM and the pro-family social groups on the right.

Both want this election to be all about moral values. For the MSM they get to say W was only elected because of a bunch of "evangelical redneck know-nothings" and the family groups get to flex their muscle as we have seen with the Specter flap.

I personally think these family groups had far less to do with the evangelical turnout than is commonly accepted. I believe evangelicals turned out simply because the GOP ran the most brilliant grass-roots campaign ever.

So for different reasons the MSM and these groups perpetuate the same falsehood. It is ironic that they are working together towards the same goal because we all know there is no love loss between them.

nice blog

 
At 10:40 AM, Blogger Chase McInerney said...

An interesting point, Chappy... I have to say you and Red Dirt were ahead of me on this one. And thanks for the kind words about the blog.

 
At 5:48 PM, Anonymous tent rentals said...

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