Somebody else take this one on first. I want to be the designated nut-kicker ;-) Hey, SM can't get to all the scrotal sacks that need kicking, and I'm more than happy to volunteer a little Bruce Lee chop socky, if it'll help the cause ;-)

K

Slowman,
First, I'm not sure how accurate the polling on this is. I get the feeling that a certain percentage of people will say "morals" as a deciding factor because it makes them feel morally strong. People frequently answer polls in the way they think paints them in the best light, instead of in truth. That said, I think the "morals" issue is mostly one of identification. One of the Fox News panelists said that people equate morals with "people who look and think like me," and a lot of Pres Bush's supporters get that feeling from him, and a lot of Sen Kerry's supporters didn't feel that way as much about him.
In other words, I think it's broader than just gay marriage, or abortion, or any specific issue, and more about the general feeling people get from the candidate they support. More Bush supporters legitimately identify with Pres Bush. More Kerry supporters wanted a change and a Democrat, but I don't know that they really identify with a liberal, rich, Ivy League Senator from New England.

Respectfully in keeping with the new rules,

slowguy

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Well, I'm not particularly religious at all (in fact, most of organized religion gives me a pain in my gluteals, these days ;-), but I know I have values and hopes and wishes for how I'd LIKE (not demand) the country to be.

S.G. is correct about the polls. I think they're confusing a kind of likable affinity for Bush and a distinct "coldness" for Kerry that resonated with the voters on election day. Now, considering that polls show that Bush received 79% of the so-called "evangelical vote", that means that somebody else got 21% of the remainder, be it Kerry or Nader or whomever.

Values are not just the province of evangelicals, though, as it seems that many people are made increasingly uneasy by the licentious atmosphere found in movies, tv and music. A lot of people say that it's becoming an almost impossible task to shield their children from the constant bombardment of our popular culture without having to check them into some sort of cloistered community :-)

K

they base their decision on who they would rather have a beer with rather than who has the better policies for the nation. i'm not saying that all republicans are morons. there are some that make over $200k and are fairly intelligent that don't want their taxes raised and are willing to ignore everything else about bush's platform, there are many who make $30k but think they'll one day be rich or that maybe the taxes will effect them. a lot of them vote based on the pro-life/anti-gay marriage stances. but mostly they are people with very little intelligence and education voting based on who they "relate" to. truly depressing.

You're making a pretty big leap in assuming that basically half the country is stupid and the other half are responsible voters. I agree that many voters are uneducated about the platforms of their candidates, but this is not a GOP problem. It is a distinctly American problem on both sides of the aisle. Quite a few of the "liberal" voters voted solely on hatred for Pres Bush and his administration, just like many "conservative" voters voted based on how they feel personally about the President. Most of these people are not actually conservative or liberal, because they don't really have a good grasp of what either of those things really means.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

i'm not saying that all republicans are morons. there are some that make over $200k and are fairly intelligent that don't want their taxes raised and are willing to ignore everything else...

Geez, guy. I'm conservative and voted Republican this last election and I don't consider myself "stupid". Not with 2 post-grad degrees and a JD. I admit I sometimes do "stupid" things, but is there anyone in this room who doesn't? Francois, you're not allowed to speak ;-)

K

what really surprises me is why are the issues associated with moral values the decisive factors in this election, when these moral values are virtually no impact on most people's life when the issues like economy etc. do have a critical impact on anyone's life...

I sure would be the last one to say I never do stupid things...

"what really surprises me is why are the issues associated with moral values the decisive factors in this election, when these moral values are virtually no impact on most people's life when the issues like economy etc. do have a critical impact on anyone's life... "

Because it's easy. It doesn't require you to learn anything about the subtleties of the Kyoto protocols or the landmine treaty or SS or tax policy. It's easy to follow the herd or to say to yourself "I like this guy, and don't like that guy," rather than making an educated decisions which would require,...education.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

BK - as the only guy who responded who actually voted Bush, did you consider moral values as a key issue?

I'd guess your approval for Bush is due maintly to your support for the Iraq war... am I close?

I was a Bush supporter as well, but not for any moral values issues.

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_______________________________________________

what really surprises me is why are the issues associated with moral values the decisive factors in this election, when these moral values are virtually no impact on most people's life when the issues like economy etc. do have a critical impact on anyone's life...

That's Euro-think, Francois. Americans don't separate amorphous issues like "values" from what they'd LIKE their politicians or their country to be. If everybody here were as pragmatic as most Europeans, Kerry'd have won in a landslide.

Mitterand used to travel around with his mistress, and nobody in France cared, for the most part. Over here, we'd at least like to pretend as if it bothered us still. Same thing with the dichotomy that Kerry presented with his refusal to act on his Catholic belief against abortion and same-sex marriage. Now, not all Catholics agree with the Church's stance, nor are deep thinkers in the Church even of the agreement that all good Catholics MUST. But, that's the way the public debate got framed.

K

shhhhhhhh....she wasn't his girlfriend :-)
The clinton affair looked very funny from France...What's the deal? he had an affair? and? well...he lied...'well, he wasn't gonna tell his wife, was he'...the only argument in France was that she wasn't cute or anything... :-)

I'm curious how you know who I voted for?

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Well, you have publically said you were a Kerry supporter.

Remeber the whole "feeble mind" deal?

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_______________________________________________

BK - as the only guy who responded who actually voted Bush, did you consider moral values as a key issue?

I'd guess your approval for Bush is due maintly to your support for the Iraq war... am I close?

I was a Bush supporter as well, but not for any moral values issues.

I've been pretty clear that I went with Bush, and put a clamp on the doubts that I had about him, solely for the security issue and the way I want the war on terror to be prosecuted. I freely admit that the whole "moral values" thing is something that I didn't give a lot of thought to.

I never thought Kerry was some sort of Antichrist or bad person. My personal opinion was that I just didn't think he or the Democrats had it in them to stand and fight. Too much baggage, going all the way back to post-Vietnam, for my taste. And I only fought back in this forum when people threw the grenades at me about my choice ;-)

But, I bet a lot of people swallowed hard and hesitated to change horses in mid-stream during this election. The caterwauling and screeching by the losing side is mainly just humorous, to me. The good thing, though, is mid-term elections are only 23.90 months away!! YIPPEEE!!

K

[snip]

doesn't anybody have any goddam values on this forum? what you guys are saying is all very interesting and i'm reading all the replies, but so far i think all the value-minded people are over reading the classifieds.

yes, i think americans are a bit afraid of becoming like france, where our women will stop shaving their armpits and we'll have tits and ass on our freeway billboards (more than we have now). plus, of course, there's the godless swedes and danes who allow everything but farm animals to marry. we don't want to become a nation where marriage ceases to carry with it any sense of tradition.

seriously, i voted for kerry. i do not want to demonize, or make fun of, or discount, or dismiss, the 51%. i want to engage you folks in a discussion and see why it is you voted as you did, so that i can understand why you're so f*^ked up. (just kidding). i want to find out why you voted as you did. i need your help. i need to understand this.

i believe there's a candidate out there who would galvanize 65% or 70% of the vote if he/she could articulate a uniquely american message. but that would include a lot of ideas we all cherish above those temporal ideas that are portable and that we can jettison in favor of more important things.

in other words, is flag burning, prayer in schools, gay marriage, core to our national debate? how really important--to EITHER side--is the question of whether a stone tablet with the 10 commandments sits in the foyer of a county courthouse?

but i digress. let's have some values listed here, gentlemen.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"Well, you have publically said you were a Kerry supporter."

Show me where because I'm pretty sure that never ever happened.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Good - I feel perceptive now ;)

Unfortunately we're at 17 posts and not one from someone slowman wants to hear from.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure moral values meant gay marriage and abortion for many or most who said that they were important.

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First our women shave their armpits (I have one at home, I know)
second, our women have real boobs! ;-)
but they have no moral values which is why we like them so much ;-)

i believe there's a candidate out there who would galvanize 65% or 70% of the vote if he/she could articulate a uniquely american message. but that would include a lot of ideas we all cherish above those temporal ideas that are portable and that we can jettison in favor of more important things.



I dunno......I don't think with the way our electorate is fractured, that ANY candidate is going to pull anywhere near those numbers for at least this next generation. We're too specialized in our wants and needs today, and I don't think anybody's willing to go with a "compromise candidate".

As a matter of fact, I'm shocked that Dubya pulled 51%, which was more than any candidate has gotten since 1988. Hell, Clinton never pulled 50% in either of his two runs (49.5% was as close as he got, in '96, against Bob "Viagra Man" Dole and that little Chihuahua, Ross Perot), and we've practically canonized that feller.

Values matter in America. That's the long and the short of it. Even the more clearer-thinking strategists in the Democratic Party admit to that, though they're now blue-skying just how they can frame THEIR values (social justice, abortion, gay marriage etc.) in such a manner as to peel off a bigger slice of Dubya's 51% in the next 2 elections ('06 and '08).

Do YOU think Hillary's got a shot in '08?

K

I am not a born again christian. I am not a fundamentalist christian. I am a practicing Catholic who tries to live the life the other 6 days of the week.

I do not believe that the importance attached to moral values as a voting agenda is a primarily religious issue. (I also think further analysis is going to show that the evangelicals were less significant than is currently thought.)

It is an attempt to correct an imbalance created by the party elites on both sides. I think it is driven by the the extremes of the wacko right and pinko left who have hijacked the Republican and Democratic parties to extremes. Others have commented on how current representatives of both parties would be unrecognizable to their parties of 30 years ago.

Unfortunately for the Democratics, Kerry was more reflective of the extreme than was Bush. Gay marriage, abortion, prayer in schools etc. are symbolic of the lack of balance. Does anyone doubt that gay relationships have existed throughout the history of this country? That abortions were performed? That christians prayed without attacking other faiths? That minorities in each of these areas were the subject of bigotry?

I view these agenda items as an attempt to develop a consensus that allows the majority to exist without being dominated by the minority. There is nothing hypocritical in not persecuting gays while at the same time not endorsing the lifestyle. Similar compromises are possible with abortion and prayer (or broadly speaking religious expression.) Nor does a compromise require either side in the debate to abandon its beliefs. How the compromise is fashioned is an expression of the will of the people.

Why is there a hunger to reach such consensus? I think people are tired of the ever expanding boundries permitted by moral relativism. It is the alternative to never knowing the limits. Uncertianty is uncomfortable.

My bet is that a group of moderate Republicans will rise from the crowd (throwbacks to 60's vintage mainstream Democrats.) to begin the process. The Democrats will likely follow suit in a couple of election cycles with their own version of moderates. (I do not believe that the Democrats will repeat the errors of the Republicans that denied them control of the Congress from the 30's through the 70's.)

This is one white man's opinion. I welcome yours.

Slowman,

I undrstand what you are saying about moral values. The people writting in to this topic may be from the doughnut (Not the middle of the country). I have lived in a few different parts of the US now, though more in the Northeast, and can attest to differing values and ideas. I am now in NYC and you would have tought Kerry was running uncontested here. Prior to here I was in W's backyard, Austin. I think Karl Rove and co did a great job portraying Kerry as way left, anti-business, and incappable of sticking with a decision. True or untrue that was the impression I got. Another thing I think many people don't realize is that middle America is very conservative, christian, and not like the west coast and the north east. I keep reading editorials here wondering how people in the middle of the country could be so out of touch. It is just the opposite, the coasts are out of touch with the majority of the country.

Personally- I voted Bush because I knew what he stood for, he is probusiness, against more taxes, against double taxation (dividends and inheritance), tort reform, and I like his health care plan better (an area I have to know for my job).



JW

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JW (on the comback trail)

First off, I think you are reading way, way too much into a flawed question. Had I gotten that question, I might well have checked moral values as well, though if asked to make a list, that wouldn't have been on it. At least in that form.

Iraq and terrorism were separate issues on the form. What if you think they are one and the same? Do you flip a coin?

Given the question and the context of the election, I think I would have dropped back and punted to moral values. Why? Because it sweeps in the other issues. In this election, the Democrats nominated someone I could never trust with the security of the country. I couldn't trust Kerry any more than Clinton or as far as I could throw either of them.

I am hoping the Democrats won't repeat this mistake next cycle, but the signs are not encouraging. One of the signs is the fact that you are even asking this question. It is deflecting you from the serious problems in the National Democratic Party. It is giving the losers yet another vehicle to condescend to those who voted for the winners. Gee, they must be poor, ignorant, racist, homophobes to think that way, blah, blah, blah.

I am not suggesting that is where you are coming from, but that is the analysis from many of the talking heads. They just don't get it.

The Democrat's campaign against Bush was largely a campaign of hate. Hate is a poor motivator, at least in America. We are much better than that collectively. We don't like seeing a perfectly decent human being, who is our president, being trashed like that. It is immoral.

Turn on the television these days. I have to change the channel 5 times if my nieces and nephews are in the room due to age appropriate material.

Look at the magazine rack at the checkout stand in the grocery store. I've been "smacked" several times by my fiance as my tongue hangs out gazing at the hotties on the covers of 'Shape' magazine. Fine for me but is it something you want our kids to look at and gain impressions from as they ask "Daddy...what does it mean when they say 'how to have the best orgasm of your life..." My sister is a 2nd grade teacher. She had kids trying on condoms in the bathroom last year.

Is this just life in the 21st century or is it a moral value issue?

As I enter into marriage and contemplate having kids these are the issues that I'll have to deal with...how do I as a parent fight what sells magazines, dvds, and movie tickets? I'll figure out a way but it's my impression that the American public is tired of fighting the battle. They long for a return to a time when things were simpler and "morals" weren't something that were debated or thought of..they were something that were taught and expected. It wasn't an option.

It goes way beyond religion. I know agnostics, atheists, jews, muslims, protestants, Catholics, etc....Some of them are moral...others could brush up on the definition. Religion and morals are independent of each other. There are religious leaders who are scumbags and non-relgious people who are saints.

I have no idea how or why moral values suddenly became an issue as the exit polls indicated. It came out of the blue. Frankly, I never thought Bush or Kerry weren't moral.

Those who stand up and state that they stand for something are a dying breed. Those who do so are branded as zealots or extremists. Quite frankly, when someone stands up and states that this is what I stand for is a breath of fresh air.