Panel Weighs Morals In Election

The difference between victory and defeat in Tuesday’s election wasn’t just a few million votes. According to an Institue of Politics (IOP) panel last night, the key disparity in the election was the way Democrats and Republicans employed moral values in their campaigns.

David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), who moderated “Election 2004: What Does it Mean?,” opened the forum by stating the magnitude of the Bush win.

“This victory could be not only a significant victory but a historic victory,” Gergen said. He noted that “mandate” was one of the first words out of Dick Cheney’s mouth when he found out about the Republican victories across the country.

The discussion quickly changed to morals—one of many factors contributing to the Republican victory.

“The bulk of America is very concerned about moral issues which made them vote for the president,” said Stephen Goldsmith, professor of government at the KSG and special adviser to President Bush on faith-based and not-for-profit initiatives.

He said that the move to put gay marriage bans on the ballot in 11 states helped bring out conservative voters, who voted for Bush. While Bush has held a very strong position against gay marriage, Goldsmith said, Sen. John F. Kerry chose not to turn it into a major campaign issue. Maxine Isaacs, a KSG lecturer, said there was a major asymmetry in voter values during this election.

“Voters for Bush were motivated by morals, while voters for Kerry were motivated by the war,” said Isaacs, who served as a press secretary for Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign.

Alex S. Jones, Director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press and Public Policy, said that the lack of other major issues—domestic or foreign—besides the war, is what caused moral issues to emerge in this election cycle.

He said moral values would not have been the deciding factor in the election had there been tax increases or the instituion of the military draft, which many Americans would have opposed. Goldsmith said there are many Americans, including independents and Catholics, who feel that the Democratic Party does not adequately represent their moral stance.

“Voters don’t view Kerry as being in the same place as Bush on those issues,” Goldsmith said.

But Republicans don’t have a monopoly on morality.

Isaacs said that although she is a Democrat, she is a moral person with “traditional liberal values,” including tolerance. She wanted to see religious morals removed from the election arena.

“Let’s get religion out of politics,” she said to the applause of several spectators.

Gergen believes that the president is sincere about wanting to govern “across the aisle,” but that the clear majority in Congress would allow him to operate as if he had a mandate.

But the congressional majorities do not necessarily confer a clear mandate for conservative policy, according to Phil Sharp, the acting director of the IOP.

He said that the Democrats should avoid “opposition for opposition’s sake.” In order to position themselves for the next election, they should focus on governing well, rather than opposing everything the Republican majority does, he said.