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Originally Posted by Ustwo
When, before the election was even over, stations like CBS were talking about it being an election on ‘morality’ my B.S. detectors were buzzing strongly. While undoubtedly moral issues would motivate some voters, its not as if the country is fundamentally different than it was in 2000 when it comes to morality. Without the morality vote, GWB may have lost but that means little in a close election, without any major groups support he would have lost. The morality issue has become a common theme among the left, and the ridicule of the ‘Jesusfreaks’ in the red states knows no limit. Such attacks only shows how little they understand what is happening or why blue is blue and red is red, and I should take heart in that for 2006, but as I’ve stated before I’m almost as worried at an all right nation as an all left nation.
Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that the issue was not morality and perhaps some of you may even trust the source. Its from slate.com , and currently slate.com is basically the democraticunderground.com with a better web design. |
You discredit yourself by equating slate.com with democraticunderground.com.
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The evidence that having a gay-marriage ban on the ballot increased voter turnout is spotty. Marriage-ban states did see higher turnout than states without such measures. They also saw higher increases in turnout compared with four years ago. But these differences are relatively small. Based on preliminary turnout estimates, 59.5 percent of the eligible voting population turned out in marriage-ban states, whereas 59.1 percent turned out elsewhere. This is a microscopic gap when compared to other factors. For example, turnout in battleground states was more than 7.5 points higher than it was in less-competitive states, and it increased much more over 2000 as well.
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This section is comparing apples to oranges. Why is the rate of voter turnout of battleground states being compared to voter turnout in marriage-ban states vs. elsewhere? The first sentence of the next paragraph (just below) makes this non-relation even more apparent.
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It's true that states with bans on the ballot voted for Bush at higher rates than other states. His vote share averaged 7 points higher in gay-marriage-banning states than in other states (57.9 vs. 50.9). But four years ago, when same-sex marriage was but a twinkle in the eye of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Bush's vote share was 7.3 points higher in these same states than in other states. In other words, by a statistically insignificant margin, putting gay marriage on the ballot actually reduced the degree to which Bush's vote share in the affected states exceeded his vote share elsewhere.
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This is an incredible logic leap. The gay marriage ban on the ballot
reduced Bush's vote share? Isn't this exactly the type of logic leap that the article is attempting to refute, in reverse? Maybe his vote share dropped because those states lost so many jobs, but he was still able to win because the moral value voters showed up.
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Why did states with gay-marriage ballot measures vote so heavily for Bush? Because such measures don't appear on state ballots randomly. Opponents of gay marriage concentrate their efforts in states that are most hospitable to a ban and are most likely to vote for Bush even without such a ballot measure. A state's history of voting for Bush is more likely to lead to an anti-gay-marriage measure on that state's ballot than the other way around.
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Let's look at the one state that actually means anything in this regard: Ohio. The rural vote in Ohio more than doubled (from 12% to 25%). 3/5ths of rural votes went to Bush. The increase in voter turnout in non-rural areas favored Kerry. It is the rural vote in Ohio which gave the election to Bush. The rural vote is comprised of predominantly social conservatives.
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Much has been made of the fact that "moral values" topped the list of voters' concerns, mentioned by more than a fifth (22 percent) of all exit-poll respondents as the "most important issue" of the election. It's true that by four percentage points, people in states where gay marriage was on the ballot were more likely than people elsewhere to mention moral issues as a top priority (25.0 vs. 20.9 percent). But again, the causality is unclear. Did people in these states mention moral issues because gay marriage was on the ballot? Or was it on the ballot in places where people were already more likely to be concerned about morality?
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This point is misleading, and is ultimately the crux of the entire argument. It is attempting to demonstrate that there is a possibility that "people were more likely to be concerned" about morality therefore the ballot initiative had no relevance. But if people in those areas are more likely to be concerned about moral values, the ballot initiative would assuredly help draw them to the polling both more so than any other issue. And this is demonstrated to be true by the massive increase in rural voters.
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More to the point, the morality gap didn't decide the election. Voters who cited moral issues as most important did give their votes overwhelmingly to Bush (80 percent to 18 percent), and states where voters saw moral issues as important were more likely to be red ones. But these differences were no greater in 2004 than in 2000. If you're trying to explain why the president's vote share in 2004 is bigger than his vote share in 2000, values don't help.
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As for this claim - I simply do not believe it. It offers no comparison other than a single, unsubstantiated declarative statement. Why am I to believe that moral values played much if any role in the 2000 election? Gun control, yes. Honesty, yes. But there was no gay marriage issue in 2000. There was no "Liberals want to ban the Bible" issue in 2000. A major portion of the GOP GOTV campaign in 2004 was the moral values aspect. Moral values was not an aspect of the exit polling in 2000 because it was never a factor.
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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Now if you are a member of the left, and if you are reading this on tfp there is about a 75% chance you are, you should take heart. A persons morals do not change quickly, but national security thoughts can be.
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What you are attempting to demonstrate, that it is a fallacy to claim that Bush won
solely on "moral" values, is obvious. What you fail to consider is that it was a major aspect of his win. This is evident by the overwhelming support for the gay marriage bans, the primary concern being moral values and the massive increase in rural voters.
But
most importantly, you're barking up the wrong tree, Ustwo. It is not the claims of the liberals that are of concern here - it is the claims of the Religious Right. They are the ones claiming this election was a moral mandate. And they are fueled by Bush and Cheney's remarks stating they will reach out to everyone that shares their goals. Naturally, that would include the extra 4 million Evangelicals that Bush had failed to receive in 2000.
If you want to grasp onto the claim that this election was about terrorism, you're going to need to stop the Religious Right from stealing it from you. You're not going to prevent that here on TFP.