Questions about the 22% Moral Values vote.

[skypilot]

Forgive me if I'm coming off a bit thick but I didn't pay much attention to the news about this poll because I was so burnt out on poll numbers but the more I think about it the more I don't understand what it is supposed to signify. The day after the election a couple of my coworkers were freaking out about this poll, assuming that it meant that the Religious Right was taking over. Was this a poll of only Republican voters or overall voters? If it was a poll of Republican voters that still leaves 78% who did not put "moral values" at the top of the list of reasons they voted the way they did. If it was a poll of overall voters then why are some people acting as if the entire 22% are Bush voters? It seems that some of those people could be Kerry voters who think that this administration is incredibly "immoral" and corrupt and took that into consideration when responding to the poll. Am I making sense? It just seems to me that people are assuming that those "moral value" voters are Religious Right Bush supporters who have cornered the market on moral concerns. What am I missing?

[FW_]

1. Jon Stewart

He put it best when he asked if that meant that the other 78% were immoral.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. It's the STUPIDITY, stupid!

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

From todays NYT OpEd page http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

In other words:
15%: Concerned with progress in Iraq
19%: Want toughness on terrorism
20%: Worried about the economy
22%: Support Legislating Moral Issues
70%: Dumb as a fucking post

[whistle]

3. Was that the way the question on the exit polls was phrased....

...."Moral values"? No ef'in way that people would say that did not matter to them. It is meaningless without defining what the survey includes under "moral values"

[skypilot]

4. This is one of the reasons...

...I'm unclear as to what this poll is supposed to signify. The Repubs are brandishing it as though it is a rebuke to us "immoral" Democrats and some people, like my coworkers, seem to be responding to it that way.

[KurtNYC]

5. So the exit polls were flawed with respect to outcome

yet they are now the basis for a mandate for legislative gay bashing?

[FW_]

6. So is the country dumber than before?

Or did 51% of the nation become "Morally Superior" to the other 49%?

[Sparkly]

13. Exactly -- the same polls had people saying "I voted for KERRY"

in larger numbers than "I voted for Bush."

What am I missing?
Were the exit polls accurate, or not?
Were people standing in line for hours to vote for "Moral Values" (22%) or to vote for Kerry (way higher)?

I can't believe the mediacracy is running away with the new "Moral Values" meme yet undercutting the significance of the exit polls' results for Kerry.

Am I missing something? Please tell me. I don't get it.

[pa28]

7. I really don't get it.

Most of the hard core conservatives I know don't have "moral values" anywhere on the radar screen. Adultery, theft, divides of class and race. It's all good.

A large number of people have been somehow fooled into thinking Bush will promote moral values in America.

:shrug:

[skypilot]

8. I don't get it either.

A large number of people have been somehow fooled into thinking Bush will promote moral values in America.

Based on a vague poll indicating 22% of voters concerned with moral values? What the hell? To hell with the other 78% I suppose.

[maxsolomon]

9. only a manichean approach to abortion & gays

is "morality". black or white. that's what the 22% means by morals. abortion = murder, gay marriage = blasphemy.

kerry compromised on both these issues and it still killed us.

[robbedvoter]

10. They used the poll included in this article to create that "reality"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/05/opinion/meyer/main653931.shtml
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moral Values Malarkey
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2004
This Against the Grain commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[FW_]

11. 78%

What about the other % that didn't list moral values as #1 but still voted for Bush? Are they immoral as well?

[AndyTiedye]

12. They Are Assuming Everyone Speaks the Republican Code

where "moral values" means hating gays and trashing womens' rights.

For us it means telling the truth, helping the poor and downtrodden,
not starting wars of agression, not stealing votes, not stealing our money and giving it to Halliburton...

[Shopaholic]

14. And weren't these the very same exit polls that showed

John Kerry winning the election? So why does the media constantly quote the 21% statistic and ignore the results showing John Kerry winning?

[robbedvoter]

16. Excellent point. Either they are correct, or they are not! You rock!

[many a good man]

15. Rove's four million fundies quote is cover story for election fraud

The CBSNews story puts a lot of perspective into this issue. Its a great example of push polling.

Nevertheless, objective people have to ask themselves where in hell did bush* get all those millions of extra votes? (WE know!) KKKarl Rove made an oft-quoted remark that 4m fundamentalist Xtn voters stayed home in 2000 and that they'd win if they could get them all to come out and vote in 2004. And of course every one of them DID come out. Maybe.

Rove's remark laid the groundwork for the diversion he would use to later help explain away those mysteriously big numbers. He had to have a huge popular vote margin to avoid recounts and investigations. It worked -- Kerry folded immediately. There's NO WAY they could have stolen THAT MANY votes! (Or could they?)

By dividing up economy/jobs and terra/Iraq, "moral values" comes out as issue #1 and the pundit-whores can blab about it ad nauseum...and help shape "reality". They are "55%" of the Republican vote and are demanding "their due" from the Repubican WH and Congress that they've empowered. This line is supposed to make us acquiesce to their plans to hand over millions more of our tax dollars to these nutcases.

It is very much true that these people are a serious threat to Constitutional Democracy and an enlightened civilized society. Its true that they are growing daily, and absorbing more and more immigrants and people of color. But they are NOT the majority. This whole thing is nothing more than a red herring.

[SmokingJacket]

17. If someone had asked me, I'd say I voted according to "Moral Values"

because I think John Kerry has them: he went to VN, decided it was wrong, was active against it, then spent twenty years in congress fighting for what he believed in.

On the other hand, ** is a little alcoholic cokehead who drove several businesses into the ground and profited from them and never showed me ANY evidence that he has any moral compass whatsoever.

Everyone votes according to "moral values" to some extent, I think. It might be code for evangelical christianity but yeah, not everyone speaks the code.

[lawladyprof]

18. There really are a chunk of people who been fed

the meme of liberals/nonreligious people are not moral.

[republicansareevil]

19. Remember that 20% of the people who chose "moral values" voted for Kerry.

I'm sure it would have been even higher if most Americans didn't understand the phrase "moral values" to be code for homophobia and anti-choice. So, out of 100 voters, 17.6 chose "moral values" as their top concern AND voted for Bush. Not exactly an overwhelming majority. And that doesn't even address the even larger number of Americans who didn't vote at all in this very important election.