As the Town moves towards facing one of the most pressing issues in its history, people are still obsessing over the plastic bag ordinance. The riverfront issue is an issue that has the potential to improve our collective wealth and provide the Town with a sense of unity. The plastic bag ordinance is a red herring. Of course, this isn’t the first red herring to halt proceedings of importance. Let’s rewind the Nation’s DVR.
In 2004 George W. Bush defeated John Kerry to win re-election as President of the United States. The Iraq war efforts were trending downward at the time, and let’s face it, John Kerry just seemed smarter. There was a big scramble to figure out just how this could have happened. Pollsters seemed to identify the culprit – values voters.
To wit, here is an excerpt from Katharine Seelye’s column in the November 4, 2004 edition of The New York Times:
Mr. Bush appealed overwhelmingly to voters on terrorism and to many others on his ability to handle the economy. But what gave him the edge in the election, which he won 51 percent to 48 percent, was a perceived sense of morality and traditional values.
Asked what one issue mattered most to them in choosing a president, “moral values” ranked at the top with the economy/jobs, terrorism and the war in Iraq. Trailing significantly were health care, taxes and education.
Every outlet ran with this information. Even the student newspaper at Northwestern was touting and lamenting this phenomenon (note: I was on assignment in Evanston. By no means am I bright enough to attend NU). No outlet exposed the fatal flaw of the question. Given the options, it would not be a stretch to say that taxes and the economy, as well as Iraq and terrorism, were two sides of similar coins. Values had no accompanying option that would split the vote.
Of course, this wasn’t the GOP’s first prom date with the values issue. Dan Quayle notoriously engaged in a feud with a fictional character. This was a disaster. The worst part was the kernel of truth that existed in Quayle’s remarks. As someone with a recent family addition, I can attest to the fact that the notion of family is marginalized when my name need not appear on any paperwork until question #21. But that’s a cultural issue. As a matter of political fact, leading with the values plank on one’s platform is off-putting.
So what does this twenty year dance with morality have to do with today’s pressing issues? The 2004 poll resulted in empowering the values wing of the GOP to declare themselves as the driver of the bus. In the interest of being in command on The Hill, the party plays along. The poll also empowered the left to devalue the GOP agenda, using “values voter” as a pejorative to describe those who seek to reorganize Federal priorities.
As our Nation reaches its debt ceiling, seeking to surpass our GDP, something has to give. Either our economy grows rapidly to justify the recent injections of debt financing, or the Federal government gets its house in order. With a 1:1 debt to equity ratio, if the government were applying for a home loan like an average citizen, it would be dangerously close to being rejected (see the recent news from S&P).
The tea leaves do not indicate that the economy is about to go gangbusters. As such, the GOP has decided that the course of action to take is fiscal sanity. But by lending too much credence to the values voter, all budget cuts will be viewed by the other side through that negative prism.
As an example, let’s take the Planned Parenthood issue. There are plenty of activities that courts hold as legal, that are not Federally funded. More over, numbers indicate that the “pro life” position is <a href=”https://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx”>not a fringe position</a>. The problem is that the position to defund has been cast, not as a limitation of funding for programs not necessary to run the government, but as a decision driven entirely by a moral agenda.
Also left unsaid in this mess is that the position to fund a program can just as easily be explained as being a matter of values. Isn’t the left’s position to use Justice Department funding to thwart Arizona’s immigration law based upon the fact that it values civil liberties over the value the right places on the rule of law? Isn’t the left’s position on the PPACA based upon the fact that it values health care as a right? Wasn’t FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights” an outline of the left’s values?
It’s all based upon values. The people in power are there based upon the Nation’s prevailing values at the time. What the GOP needs to do is learn how to use their values to articulate a position that is amenable to the majority. It must avoid making its values the position itself, and it must avoid letting the left carry the conversation to that domain. There is real work to be done. The people put these eighty-seven newcomers in place to do the work of the day, which is to restore fiscal sanity. All decisions must be viewed through that prism. All of this values and social agenda talk is a red herring that is distracting from the task at hand.
Steve Payne says
I agree with you. These social issues are going to get in the way of both parties working out reasonable solutions to the big problems both sides agree on. I do have one little issue. The decision to use the justice dept. to challenge SB 1070 in Arizona was a” rule of law” effort not a left wing value. The law was found to be unconstitutional by both the Dist. Ct. and the Fed. court of appeals.
MBTroup says
Steve – You know darned well that those with the necessary means will hire a lawyer who can find a judge (a human being) sympathetic to any cause. Cases in point: the on again, off again NFL lockout and the varying interpretations of the commerce clause with regard to PPACA.
adaptor says
Actually, it’s the Value Voter Brand. Slogan: LIMIT GOVERNMENT • REDUCE SPENDING • CHAMPION TRADITIONAL VALUES • PROTECT AMERICA https://www.valuesvotersummit.org/. The brand was concocted by The Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian right group and lobbying organization. The function of FRC is to promote what it considers to be traditional family values, by advocating and lobbying for socially conservative policies in areas such as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and divorce. FRC is affiliated with a 501(c)(4) lobbying PAC known as FRC Action. So if you want a clean slate and a shared values conversation you’ll need to come up with a new brand. I daresay the 87 new guys weren’t in fact elected to “do the work of the day” if it did not include promoting the VV campaign.
MBTroup says
Existence >< Relevance
"I daresay the 87 new guys weren’t in fact elected to “do the work of the day” if it did not include promoting the VV campaign."
Logic would dictate that not every Obama '08 voter stayed home while a slew of born-again, newly signed values voters swept a new Congress into office. No, these were people who were tired of the SOP in 2008, and still tired of it in 2010. So do swaths of people change their value system every two years? Or is it more likely that people of a particular value set happen to be voting blocs for the respective parties, while the independent voter in need of motivation actually determines Ws and Ls?
Steve Payne says
The total democratic vote for the House fell from 65 million in 2008 to 39 million in 2010. The republican vote fell from 52 million in 2008 to 45 million in 2010. I think it was mostly the loss of Obama voters and the fact that Democrats aren’t as dependable voters as Republicans are. 2012 will be a presidential year so Ds should do better.
I agree with you that the debt needs to be reduced and social values kept in the private domain.
MBTroup says
“The total democratic vote for the House fell from 65 million in 2008 to 39 million in 2010. The republican vote fell from 52 million in 2008 to 45 million in 2010.”
I believe they called this the enthusiasm gap.
adaptor says
To address your thesis more directly, using the term “values voter” to describe the GOP agenda was not a smear campaign by the liberal media (unlike less-reputable media referring the POTUS as the socialist in chief). Rather it is a conscious effort by the right wing to outline its intentions to dismantle government programs for ideological (not fiscal) reasons.
More than a few of the “87” have stated their intentions loudly and publicly during the debates over the 2010 CR and in other forums to kill funding for programs that they felt were morally repugnant (rather than fiscally unsound). It has never been about anything as abstract as the concept of values itself — it has been about their particular set of values and the exclusion of competing values. They are not the statesmen to avoid making values the position itself. I think Mr Gilchrist and Mr Harris would agree on that point.
Wishes /= Horses
MBTroup says
“Rather it is a conscious effort by the right wing to outline its intentions to dismantle government programs for ideological (not fiscal) reasons.”
For sure, there is some intersection between the two. But what gets the nod as being the sole driver is the values component. That makes it easier to identify, isolate, and attack the target.
Ideologically, I can say that the Federal government does not need to be in the abortion funding business, and I can say it without respect to my feelings on the issue itself(which you don’t know and may be surprised by). Only the decision to cut budget items is viewed negatively through the prism of values. The demand to fund is also value based. The left just cites different values. Favoring a program shouldn’t guarantee a democrat’s socialist moniker any more so than cutting a program guarantees a republican’s zealot moniker.
Steve Payne says
Federal funding of abortion has been illegal in the US for over 30 years. So going after Planned Parenthood was not a values vote.It was either an attempt to stop healthcare assistance for poor people or a scare tactic to rile up the pro lifers or both.
MBTroup says
@Steve – Fair enough. I meant to qualify it as “indirect funding” but didn’t want to turn the debate too much towards that issue. I should have used something less emotionally charged like the NEA (The arts kind, not the teacher kind. Oh what the heck, them too)