Monday, November 15, 2004

The undercurrent

Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics joins the chorus debunking the inflated importance "Moral values" voters were given by the exit polls. He quotes Krauthammer:
If you pit group against group, moral values comes in dead last: war issues at 34%, economic issues at 33% and moral values at 22%,
and then concludes,
That doesn't mean "values" issues weren't part of the mix in this election, but they were an undercurrent at best and simply do not account for President Bush's country-wide demographic and geographic gains.
I think "undercurrent" is right word to use. The culture war goes on - see for example this anecdotal evidence from the Oklahoma senate race - but in this presidential election national security was the issue. If, God willing, 9/11 is not repeated and Iraq settles down, then I predict values will take center stage in the mid-term elections.

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