Last one of the morning (smile). This NY Times article maintains that it wasn't the religious right who made the difference in this election (and it has numbers to prove it) but rather that:
"He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.
The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry. That's policy, not fundamentalism. The upsurge in voters was an upsurge of people with conservative policy views, whether they are religious or not."
He makes some of the same observations I made: that "moral values" is devoid of meaning, therefore questions on exit polls about moral values are pointless.
Brooks concludes,
"What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man. "
I don't agree with this assessment, but I do agree with his warning (elsewhere in the article) not to oversimplify the issue. This isn't "we" liberals against "them" conservatives. It's radical Republicans setting the national agenda.
And in reference to the safety issue? Are we safer? Well, if we'd lost over a thousand lives in one incident, a bombing or bio-terrorism attack, Bush might not be in office in January. Instead, we lost those lives in a foreign land, for an unjust war on a third world country. Those calls of "bomb them back to the stone age" have a ludicrous ring when you think about how devastated those countries were before we went in.
So if you are esconsed in your warm home, with electricity, running water and food (unlike the Afghani and Iraqi people) and no military weapons at your side, no sandy combat boots waiting for your scared, tired feet (unlike our soldiers in these combat zones) then you are insulated from the realities of the war.
When we are attacked again on our own soil, it will be in spite of the wars in the Middle East - if not because of them.
Don't live in fear - but don't be deluded either.
Posted by Vicki at November 6, 2004 09:14 AM