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MickityMike

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/op...er=rssuserland

The Values-Vote Myth

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 6, 2004

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.

Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not.

The red and blue maps that have been popping up in the papers again this week are certainly striking, but they conceal as much as they reveal. I've spent the past four years traveling to 36 states and writing millions of words trying to understand this values divide, and I can tell you there is no one explanation. It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.

In the first place, there is an immense diversity of opinion within regions, towns and families. Second, the values divide is a complex layering of conflicting views about faith, leadership, individualism, American exceptionalism, suburbia, Wal-Mart, decorum, economic opportunity, natural law, manliness, bourgeois virtues and a zillion other issues.

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.

__________________
I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons. - Glenn Reynolds

 

Plainsman1963

Damn...Somebody else thinks the same as me on this issue...

Who would have thunk it?

__________________


"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe

Posting Guidelines

Murdock

The hypocrisy of the leftists never ceases to amaze..

They need to take some time and take a long look in the mirror and come to the realization of the fact that they are no longer mainstream and adapt..

This despite the most favorable media coverage for Kerry..

Link

Stephanie S.

Oh Murdock, you're crackin me up! The Left is not longer mainstream?
Really? Let's see. There are about 300 counties in this country. Some of those counties have populations of less than 2,000. Those are the counties that voted, in larger part for Bush.

Now, there were about 55 counties that voted for Kerry. Highly populated areas, you know, more mainstream places, like California, New York, Boston. Oh wait, that would be forward thinking and progressive places.

Take California for example. Ever been to Cali? Check out the beautiful clean coastline where people have evolved enough to take the time to dedicate themselves to preserving our coast. Then trot on down South, to the Gulf Of Mexico, near Galveston. Just stand in the water for a minute. Feel the slime and chemicals cover your skin. Enjoy the sight of the oil tankers and chemical plants along the coast. Maybe the San Jacinto river will catch on fire again while you are there. That's a sight to see.
Ahhh, Texas. Where people are proud of their DUI records, lack of environmental responsibility and backwards bilingual education and falsified education records.

Yeah, they are so very progressive.

I like the way the TX school board adopts Personal Health books that promote abstinence only, how the board members fight to keep condom education out of schools. Yet take a look at their teen pregnancy rate. Yeah, real progressive. I like their Christian evangelical stance on things. I like the Church billboards next to the adult bookstore billboards. Can you say hypocrite? Oh, sure you can, you did!

Take a trip across this country Murdock. Better yet look at the results of the election. 3.5million more people voted for Bush out of more than 115,409,172. Considering the number of votes cast for Liberal candidates, I’d say your assertation that Liberals are no longer mainstream is just plain old wrong. What is your point with this anyway? Do you want to support your president or trash liberals? With Conservatives bashing liberal ideology, people like you make it next to impossible to “reach across the aisle” and try to find common ground.

__________________
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 (Listen to audio)

JTP

Liberal elitist poop .


Population density does NOT mean mainstream,all the states had a split voting populace. As such Cali is neither all Republican nor Democrat. In LA, specifically, the liberal ideology may be mainstream. But nationally the Republican ideology is mainstream. The most liberal counties in the country, by their vote, are not only amongst the most densely populated but are also some of the worse in terms of their local economies. They have, by a large majority, liberal Democratics in office.

And, as the population shifts away from the urban areas their constituants will become even more concentrated - to their detriment.

My opinion of course.

 

MickityMike

Interesting attitude on display here. I'm not saying that Murdock is completely right when he says that the Left is no longer mainstream, but I do think he's got a point. In fact, I think the tone of condescension in your reply is quite instructive.

Is it really a matter of evolution in your mind?

Approximately 60% of voters in this past election either approved of gay marriage or gay civil unions. It appears that Bush got some of the “progressive” vote this time. I wonder why?

Correlation does not imply causation. The teen pregnancy rate could be related to your point, or it may have absolutely nothing to do with it. I’d also say that the Lonestar State probably isn’t reflective of the rest of the country that voted Republican.

Yes, it’s people like Murdock bashing liberals that makes reconciliation impossible... It’s certainly not sanctimonious “liberals” who gnash teeth and judge Republicans and Bush supporters with the most inane stereotypes, i.e. warmongerers, hateful, etc.

Stephanie S.

Perhaps is he wasn't bashing liberals we could discuss how to break the divide. Instead, his pandering to the right brings about the sense of a need to defend liberal ideology. I do indeed consider much liberal ideology to be more progressive and forward thinking that the "right". I was born and raised in the south. I experienced First hand the bigotry and racism that is alive and well and bassackwards in many areas. Racism is NOT forward thinking.
Intolerance for a persons sexuality is NOT progressive. Am I elitist because I think so? If that is the case, I'll accept the label of elitist.

peace

MickityMike

If the liberal ideology is as you say, “more progressive and forward thinking than the ‘Right’”, then why are you on the ad hominem defensive? Why not defend your ideology with actual facts and examples? Instead we see you resorting to the tactics of a bigot.

You feel justified in your bigoted view because you're from an “assbackward area.” What if I told you that I grew up in a predominantly black St. Louis neighborhood (which I did) and that from what I've witnessed, black people are violent, don't care about their children, and have trouble holding jobs? (All of those derived assumptions are untrue, by the way.)

I certainly do not accept those statements regarding black people as reasonable or true, but I've offered the same amount of evidence to support a bigoted view against blacks as you've offered to support a bigoted view against the Right. How do you justify this?

Stephanie S.

Here's a view of Republican Bigots. Please feel free to refute any of this (I'm sure you will find some way...) and by all means, show me Dems or liberals who have these kinds of records.

Trent Lott - Enough Said

Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican party from 1993-1997, governor of Mississippi, was photographed at the Black Hawk Barbecue and Political Rally, a fundraiser held by the Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group based in Missouri.

In Rochester, N.Y., Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle, a white Republican, recently derided Mayor William Johnson Jr., a black Democrat. "If there was a mayor that looked like me, it would be a whole different landscape," Doyle told a local reporter.

Rep. Tom Craddick, the Texas House Republican leader, was one of a small group to vote against establishing a Martin Luther King Jr. state holiday in 1987.


Cass Ballenger. The white Republican from North Carolina recently told the Charlotte Observer that he had "segregationist" feelings and called former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, an African-American Democrat from Georgia, a "bitch."

Jefferson Sessions of Alabama. Sessions has called a black assistant U.S. attorney "boy" and a white civil rights attorney a "disgrace to his race." As a prosecutor, Sessions pursued civil rights workers on phony voter fraud charges. As Alabama attorney general, he again pursued allegations of voter fraud in African-American communities, looked the other way in Anglo communities, and refused to aggressively investigate burnings and bombings of black churches. He also said he thought KKK members were "OK" until he heard some might have smoked marijuana and charged the NAACP with being "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Despite such a past, Bush and other Republicans have campaigned for Sessions.

Dick Cheney opposed measures strengthening laws against housing discrimination and collecting hate-crime data. Cheney supported apartheid in the racist South African regime, even as it crumbled. Republican politicians in Georgia and South Carolina, such as Sonny Perdue, the new Republican governor of Georgia, were elected in 2002 on platforms that included "restoring pride" in the Confederate flag.

The July convention of college Republicans sold shirts bearing homophobic and racist themes.
One has a picture of African-American filmmaker Spike Lee, and says, "Bring Back the Blacklist," and another reads, "No Muslims No Terrorism."

http://www.jameshartforcongress.com/ Republican racist for Congress in Tennessee


Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming, debating an gun bill, said the following, ""My sons are 25 and 30. They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my -- "


Strom Thurmond said "What I want to tell you...Ladies and Gentlemen...That there's not enough troops in the Army...to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the ****** race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches..."

Responding to a proposal to rename Houston's Intercontinental Airport after a black congressman, Jim Westmoreland, a Republican city councilman, had a better idea: "The idea now is to name the airport ****** International. That way it would satisfy all the blacks."

Rep. Arlon Lindner's, (R-Minnesota) fine comments to the Minnesota State Legislature: "Nazi persecution of gays and lesbians is a new idea spawned by a lot of rewriting of history."

Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh - Racists and/or Homophobic

S2

In the race for governor of New York, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe decided black candidate Carl McCall was too far behind incumbent Republican Gov. George Pataki in the polls and, thus, would only get half of a previous commitment of $500,000 from the national party. New York, by the way, has 2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans.

In Minnesota, after the tragic plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone, the Democrats passed over an eager replacement candidate in 57-year-old Alan Page, a black associate justice of the state Supreme Court. Instead, the party courted 74-year-old Walter Mondale, retired from politics for 18 years.

In Ohio, the Democratic Party bought full-page ads in local newspapers promoting candidates - complete with photographs. But in Ohio's rural, predominantly white 2nd District, black Democratic congressional candidate Charles Sanders, running against incumbent Rob Portman, was conspicuously absent from the ads.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, white Democrats throughout the south blocked access to schools when the Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, ordered all schools integrated as per the Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education.

For one hundred and fifty years Democrats in the south kept blacks down through a variety of legislative and illegal means, including intimidation, segregation, infringement of voting rights and police intimidation. Today the tactics are more subtle and masked by propaganda about "conservatives", yet aimed at the same goal: to keep minorities out of power unless they are willing to "play the game" that Democrats have rigged against them.

Senator Robert Byrd, D-WV: Byrd is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan
and is currently the only national elected official with a history in
the Klan, a well known hate group. Byrd was extremely active in the Klan
and rose to the rank of "Kleagle," an official Klan membership
recruiter.

In a letter to the Klan leadership dated 3 years after he purported to
have ended his ties with them, Byrd wrote "I am a former kleagle of the
Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state.
The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its
rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd continued his racist diatribe "It
is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state
of the Union" and followed with a request for assistance from the hate
group's leadership in "rebuilding the Klan in the realm" of West
Virginia.
Byrd's racism extends far beyond his Klan membership. In a letter he
wrote on the subject of desegregating the armed forces, Byrd escalated
his racist rhetoric to an appalling level. In the letter, Byrd vowed
that he would never fight in an integrated armed services noting
"(r)ather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in
the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours
become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen
from the wilds".

Byrd's racist opinions have shown their ugly face in his behavior in the
Senate. Byrd led the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and,
according to the United States Senate's own website, filibustered the
legislation to the bitter end appearing as one of the last opponents to
the act before a coalition of civil rights proponents led by Republican
Minority Leader Everett Dirksen invoked cloture so that the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 could pass. At the time, Byrd was in the the midst of a 14
hour and 13 minute filibuster diatribe against the key civil rights
measure.

Throughout the 1960's, Byrd was was one of the staunchest opponents to
civil rights in the U.S. Senate. Byrd's racist history drew attention
recently when he went on national television and repeatedly used the
n-word, one of the most vicious racial slurs in existence, in an
appearance on national television. Byrd uttered the slur on Fox News
Sunday with Tony Snow on March 5, 2001. Despite the appalling nature of
the remark, it went largely ignored by the mainstream media and the self
appointed "civil rights" leadership. Whereas a similar remark by anyone
other than a leading Democrat Senator would assuredly prompt the likes
of Jesse Jackson to assemble protest rallies demanding resignations, the
Jackson crowd was eerily quiet following Byrd's remarks, issuing only
low key suggestions that Byrd should avoid making such bigoted remarks.

In a sickening recognition of Byrd's appalling political career, the
national Democrat party has done nothing but embrace the West Virginia
senator with leadership roles and practically every honor imaginable. To
this very day the Democrats call former Klansman turned U.S. Senator
Robert Byrd the "conscience of the Senate." They have embraced him as
their party's central pillar in all ways possible. Byrd has been
reelected more times than any other Democrat senator, has served as a
Democrat in Congress, a Democrat State Senator in West Virginia, and a
Democrat State Delegate in West Virginia. Democrats have made repeatedly
elected Byrd into their national party leadership and into the U.S.
Senate leadership. He became secretary of the Senate Democrat Caucus in
1967, and Senate Democrat Whip in 1971. The Democrats elected former
Klansman Byrd as their Senate Majority Leader from 1977-1980 and as
their Senate Minority Leader from 1981-1986. Byrd was again elected
Democrat Majority Leader from 1987-1988. Democrats made Byrd the
chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and President Pro
Tempore of the Senate from 1989 until the Republicans won control of the
Senate in November 1994. Following the defection of Jim Jeffords in June
2001, the Democrats again made Byrd the chairman of the Appropriations
Committee and elected him to the highest ranking office in the Senate:
the President Pro Tempore, a position which also put this former
Klansman 4th in line for the presidency. Byrd lost his position when
Republicans retook the Senate in late 2002, but continues to serve as
one of the highest ranking members of the Democrat Senate leadership
today.

Senator Ernest Hollings, D-SC: Hollings is notorious for his use of racial slurs. He rose out of the Democrat Party's segregationist wing in the 1960's as
governor of South Carolina. While in office as governor, Hollings
personally led the opposition to lunch counter integration in his state.
The New York Times reported on March 17, 1960 that then-governor
Hollings "warned today that South Carolina would not permit 'explosive'
manifestations in connection with Negro demands for lunch-counter
services." According to the article, Hollings gave a speech in which he
"challenged President Eisenhower's contention that minorities had the
right to engage in certain types of demonstrations" against segregation.
In the speech Hollings described the Republican president as "confused"
and asserted that Eisenhower had done "great damage to peace and good
order" by supporting the rights of minorities to protest segregation at
the lunch counters.
Governor Hollings' support for segregation continued throughout his term
and included his attendance at a July 23, 1961 meeting of segregationist
Democrats to organize their opposition to the civil rights movement.
Hollings was one of four governors in attendence, all of them Democrats.
The others included rabid segregationists Orval Faubus of Arkansas and
Ross Barnett of Mississippi. The New York Times reported on the meeting,
noting that among the strategies discussed were using the segregationist
White Citizens Council organization to mobilize political opposition to
desegregation.

In more recent years Hollings, a senior Democrat senator, has made
disparaging racial remarks and slurs against minorities. Senator
Hollings, who was a contender for his party's presidential nomination in
1984, blamed his defeat in the primaries by using a racial slur against
Hispanics. After losing the Iowa Straw Poll, Hollings stated "You had
wetbacks from California that came in here for Cranston," referring to
one of his opponents, Alan Cranston. A few years later Hollings
reportedly used the slur "darkies" to derogatorily refer to blacks. He
also once disparagingly referred to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition as the
"Blackbow Coalition," and called former Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who
is Jewish, "the Senator from B'nai B'rith." Hollings gained
international criticism for his remarks about the African Delegation to
the 1993 Geneva GATT conference, where he crudely remarked "you'd find
these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each
other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."
Hollings was also the Governor of South Carolina who raised the
confederate flag over the state capitol in the early 1960's in what was
considered at the time to be an act of defiance to civil rights. The
press ignored Hollings and his role in the flag issue at the same time
the political correctness police were smearing George W. Bush during his
campaign after Bush correctly remarked that the flag was a state issue
to be decided upon by South Carolina and not the national government

Andrew Cuomo: Cuomo, Bill Clinton's former Housing Secretary and a
prominent Democrat political player in New York, was tape recorded using
racially inflamatory rhetoric to build opposition to a potential
Democrat primary opponent while speaking to a Democrat group. Cuomo
stated that voting for his rival for the New York Democrat gubernatorial
nomination Carl McCall, who is black, would create a "racial contract"
between Black and Hispanic Democrats "and that can't happen." Upon
initial reports, Cuomo denied the statement but later a tape recording
surfaced. Cuomo later dropped out of the race for governor

Al Sharpton knows all about racial pandering, whining, and whipping people into a frenzy over so-called "racism." In the 80's, Mr. Sharpton nearly succeeded in promoting the lie that a young black girl (Tawana Brawley) was raped and cut by a (white) New York cop. To this day he refuses to apologize for it.

Both parties have their crazy aunts-- citing examples of racist individuals ( and where the heck are you coming from with Rush and O'reily?) is hardly demostrative of systemic racism in the party