noteworthy wrote:
] David Brooks takes a crack at debunking the Dems.

Thats what he does for a living, isn't it?

] 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.

WRONG. The following story was linked from Pew's website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05religion.html

"What this suggests is that the Bush coalition wasn't just evangelicals," said John C. Green, a professor of political science and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. "It included a much larger group of more traditional religious people, many of them outside of the evangelical tradition. What they have in common is that all of these groups tend to hold traditional views on sexual behavior."

Voters who identified themselves as white born-again or evangelical Christians made up 23 percent of voters this year. Seventy-eight percent of them voted for the president - clearly an increase over the 2000 election (but it is unclear by how much, since the question used to identify evangelicals in surveys of voters leaving the polls was asked differently four years ago, making a direct comparison impossible). Professor Green said his polling showed an increase in the evangelical vote for President Bush from 71 percent in 2000 to 76 percent this year.

] If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

I agree, but problems with the data so far are not a license to fill in the blanks with your own favorite explanation.

The fact is that Kerry sucked. I said at the time of the Dem's convention that the focus on the economy was stupid and that the number one issue would be terrorism. I was right and wrong. The number one issue was "moral values" (and I'm going to continue to put that in quotes because I think its an oxymoron), but the number two issue was Terrorism. Where Kerry failed was by not focusing on Terrorism.

Having said that, I would feel much much better about this election if it seemed like the American people were saying what a few of my more educated friends are saying: "We agree with you, Tom, that that there are significant problems with the way Bush is handling things (Enemy combatants, Iraq war justification/timing/diplomacy), but we feel that Kerry sucks, and so we couldn't vote for him." I can respect that. The American people know better then I do whats best for them.

Thats not what I'm hearing. Kerry did better in the debates! This wasn't about him. This was about Terrorism and Moral Values, and I cannot escape the conclusion that the election seemed to reach to some of the ugliest aspects of this nation's character. I'm not angry because Kerry lost. I expected that. I'm angry because of what seems to have won.

I'm angry because Gay Marriage has taken center stage in the Moral Values discussion, and its not reasonable to interpret people's position on that matter to be anything other then straight up hate. I spent a few hours researching the matter because I'm trying to get a handle on this. The Bible is not at all clear on the subject, and the most compelling interpretations seem to occur in contexts that include Old Testament condemnations on the eating of Calamari, and the Epistles of Paul, which condone slavery and require that women wear veils. These people don't oppose Gay Marriage because the bible tells them so. They oppose Gay Marriage because they don't like gay people.

On the Terrorism side, again, by and large the people who indicated that Terrorism is a major issue for them are not people who live in places that are likely to be hit by Terrorist attacks, and they know it! When these people talk about Terrorism they are not seriously saying that they are concerned that they are going to be the victim of a terrorist attack. They are concerned about Terrorist attacks to the degree that America has been attacked, and they want a strong response to those attacks mostly because of their emotions about the strength of their country. Stated more cynically, they want to see people die on their televisions so they can feel better about themselves, and their asses are not on the line.

Tell me I'm nuts. Tell me that this is a radical, emotionally charged interpretation of this election that has no relationship to what really happened. Prove it! I WANT someone to talk me down from this perspective. I see an election that was about jingoism and hate. And it pisses me off. I don't want to think that this is my country. But that seems the most straight forward way to interpret events.

RE: The Values-Vote Myth