Joe Klein, the impeccably liberal Democrat, has understood the point about the moral values factor in the US election. Because the anti-Bush luvvies hysterically smeared the moral values camp as 'rednecks' and godly half-wits, some Republican supporters dismissed this moral factor out of hand as a statistical misreading that was talked up by malevolent lefties. Klein, however, more coolly concludes there is indeed a vital lesson here for the Democrats. Pointing out that the Pew survey put the percentage of voters saying moral values were most important at 27%, some five points higher than the initial exit polling, he observes correctly that a) this was indeed a key factor and b) meant something far wider and more significant than a crude vote against gay marriage:

'Most "values" voters are the "average" folks John Edwards was talking about throughout the campaign: Mom and Dad both working, spending less time with their kids and falling behind economically...George W. Bush promised practically nothing except faith and strength. But religious faith is the implicit Republican solution to the personal traumas of the middle-class squeeze — the fact that overworked parents are scared to death that their unsupervised kids are taking life lessons from the sex, drugs and weirdness spewing from their televisions and computers. Liberals scoff, but the balm that comes with being part of a religious community—the Bible study, youth groups, choirs and, yes, the moral absolutes that often accompany such communion—is real and comforting, unlike the promise of complicated and expensive government programs.'

This is surely correct. Concern for children's welfare under the influence of a culture in which all the norms that keep most people safe are breaking down is uppermost in most parents' minds. That, as much as or even more than terrorism, is at the root of their feelings of insecurity. And to combat that insecurity they need to trust their country's leader; and to trust him, they value things like whether he goes in for straight talking and has his head screwed on about the important things in life. That's why the wealthy Nantucket windsurfer couldn't compete with the reformed and penitent Texan sinner who showed backbone by allowing religion to turn him from vice to virtue. When it comes to embodying security, there's no contest. That's why in modern politics, in our post-modern, cynical, licentious society, it's still values -- and religious values, at that -- which really matter.

Posted by melanie at November 15, 2004