Daily Ramblings:
License To Kill ...11/08/2004 03:38:54 pm
The mind-numbingly prolific
columnist Mark Steyn has already written about 15
pieces post-mortem-ing the election - I think this
one ties it all together pretty well: Believe it or not, it
wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush.
Maybe I'm just not reading enough,
but I have yet to see anyone make the point I'm about
to vent upon here.
The mainstream media is full of
dedicated Democrats trying to get their heads around
the "moral values" element in the exit
polls. Of-course the general theme that this issue
(not that it is a true definable single issue) was
the dominant one is itself something of a distortion.
The clearly very sloppy poll which determined this
made "moral values" the most important
factor for 22% of voters, but then split up the
numbers for "Terrorism (19%)" and
"Iraq (15%)." So in reality, the poll is
saying that the war against Islamofascism was the
most important issue to 34% of voters - making it the
single biggest issue, as well it should be. (Imagine
a poll in 1944 splitting up the war in Europe and war
in the Pacific, and concluding that the desire for a
TV set in every home was the most important issue to
voters that year.)
In any case, commentators who obviously would have
preferred to see Senator Kerry win are nevertheless
giving wide-eyed credit to the evil genius Rove and
his compliant marionette Bush for summoning these
great hordes of "moral valuers" through
their shrewd demagoguing of the gay marriage issue.
This is a predictable failure to see the truth on two
counts.
First, of-course Bush and Rove did not put gay
marriage on the front burner. This was done by the
proponents of gay marriage, notably the Massachusetts
Supreme Court and the mayor of San Francisco. It was
obligatory that the presidential candidates take some
kind of position on the issue. President Bush
considered it and consulted with people he trusted,
and took the position that was natural to his
philosophical outlook. Senator Kerry, in typical
fashion, tried to have it both ways, opposing gay
marriage and also opposing taking the only direct
action possible to prevent its imposition, i.e. a
constitutional amendment.
Secondly, and this is the main point, gay marriage
was just one of a panoply of social/moral issues that
swirled around this election and defined the gulf
between the candidates. One of the most significant
ones was not one that Bush and Rove brought up at
all, but which Senator Kerry chose to make one of the
pillars of his campaign: embryonic stem cell
research. It's astounding to me that no one is
talking about this as one of the conspicuous failures
of the Democratic ticket.
During the Democratic National Convention, this
issue was brought up in almost every speech, in a way
that was clearly coordinated. It was highlighted most
of all by the major speech given by the smarmy Ron Reagan
Jr.. It continued being an issue through the
campaign, and rose to almost pre-eminent prominence
again when Christopher Reeve died. The
Democrats considered this a winner. They described
President Bush as "anti-science." Senator Kerry
firmly planted his flag upon the ground of those who
advocate consuming the young in order to prolong the
lives of the old, and using federal tax dollars to do
so. A harsh way of describing it? Not as far as those
who believe that life begins at conception are
concerned. And those are the self-same voters who
turned out in larger than usual numbers to vote for
President Bush. They are the mysterious "moral
values" voters. While the Democrats scratch
their heads and wonder at the evil scheming of the
Republicans that got these voters to the polls, they
would do well to just look at their own platform.
However, it's a safe bet that they will not.
The talking point now is that the Democrats simply
failed to frame their issues using moral language, as
if a few Biblical quotes and prayerful pleadings
would make an issue like embryonic stem cell research
suddenly appealing to conservative religious folk.
However, the problem is not the language used
to sell a policy of harvesting nascent human life for
the benefit of Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox
and indeed potentially any one of us. The problem is
the policy itself. A lot of people don't want any
part of their tax money being spent in a search for a
cure that they equate with cannibalism.
It's not the packaging; it's what's inside that
stinks. That's true on this and a range of issues,
including the war, taxes and health care. As long as
the Democrats continue to spin their wheels around
that fact, they will remain effectively a minority
party.
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