KUFM / KGPR
T. M. Power
The Meaning of “Moral Values” in the Recent Election
One of the most talked about results of exit polling and other post-election surveys has been the importance of “moral values” to those who voted to reelect Bush. Conservatives, including the President himself, have interpreted this as support for the continued blurring of the line between religion and government. Liberals and progressives have bemoaned this as a dangerous political shift that puts churches at the center of partisan politics with Christian ayatollahs imposing their puritanical decrees on the nation.
Although there was a relatively small minority of citizens who did vote on the basis of religious dogma, these polling results support neither Bush’s claimed mandate on the basis of a single percentage point shift in the electorate nor progressives’ fears of a coming evangelical inquisition.
The “moral values” question, as the very vagueness of the phrase should make clear, meant a lot of different things to those who responded that this was important to them in their voting decision. To most, “moral values” did not refer to particular religious positions. Specifically it did not refer to evangelical Christian beliefs even when it was evangelical Christians who were responding to the question.
Religious faith for most believers is not primarily about particular religious dogmas. After all, most Catholics, for instance, do not accept their church’s position on birth control, premarital sex, divorce or, even, abortion. Religious faith is not primarily about the “thou shalt nots” of the Old Testament. It is primarily about the personal emotional stability and safe haven provided by a deep belief that there is a purpose beyond the individual experience of loss, pain, and insecurity. It provides solace, confidence, meaning, and direction in life.
It should not be surprising that from this position people of faith recognize and appreciate a leader who has those same personal characteristics even if his or her particular religious beliefs are far removed from their own. In that sense the “moral value” question was not so much about religion as it was about confidence, vision, and direction. Bush was perceived by many voters to have all three of these because of his deep personal values. This, in turn, was seen as giving him the courage and moral fiber that voters wanted in a national leader.
As frustrating as it is to liberals and progressives, this is not new. During Reagan’s eight years as president, citizens regularly stated that although they did not agree with many of his policies, they trusted and supported him because he spoke his mind bluntly and clearly and they knew where he stood.
When Democrats and Republicans are compared in terms of convictions and principles, the weakness of the Democrats is clearly visible. While the Democrats have been debating among themselves about how far to the center or the right they need to move in order to get elected, the right wing of the Republican Party since Goldwater has been clearly and dramatically staking out an ideological position on the far right and not wavering, even after Goldwater’s landslide defeat. Reagan’s election gave them control of the Whitehouse. The Gingrich revolution gave them control of the US House of Representatives, confirming the right’s successful takeover of the Republican Party.
These conservative political successes were not associated with a careful move to the center or a setting of policy positions based on polling results. The Republican right knew what it wanted and single-mindedly went after it and has been amazingly successful at the national level.
In contrast Democrats like Kerry have been tip-toeing through a minefield of conflicting national trends and interests, hoping to find a temporary winning coalition. This search for the center and the undecided voter before taking a position is what created Kerry’s greatest vulnerability: his perceived indecisiveness on which the Bush campaign capitalized with its “flip-flopping” ads and slogans.
The post-election polling data indicated that Americans wanted a leader whose positions were tied to core convictions, moral values if you want, that would give a discernable direction to his leadership. Intelligent, pragmatic, adaptation to changing circumstances, something that contemporary liberals excel at, simply is not enough for a national leader any more.
Liberals and progressive, of course, are not short on moral values and principled positions that tie in nicely into traditional American values: equality, diversity, and tolerance and the value of public and private institutions to protect and enhance all three; the value of collective action to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens from the misuse of concentrated economic power; the value of a safety net for us all in the face of the unavoidable insecurity associated with illness, a constantly changing economy, and old age; the value of protecting the safety of our communities, our work places and the air we breathe and the water we drink; the value of passing on to future generations most of the beauty, complexity, and grandeur of God’s creation.
What progressive and liberals have lacked recently, at least at the national level, is the ability to convey a conviction and vision and a confident leadership based on these traditional values.