One of the handful of things I make sure to teach my general studies American Government students about polling is that the wording of the question is key to interpreting what the responses mean. Specifically I note that the vaguer the wording, the more difficult it is to know what the respondents are responding to.
That bring us to the exit polls from last Tuesday and the much touted fact that “moral values� topped the list of what voters cared about most:
The fact that “moral values� beat out “economy/jobs� by a whopping 2 percentage points, and terrorism by 3 has been translated, by many on both the right and the left as the key to understanding this election. Many on the right have interpreted “moral values� to mean, quite specifically, evangelical Christian values and a mandate to have certain types of persons appointed to the Supreme Court sans a fight (and to oust Specter from the Judiciary with ease, among other things such as dismissing the idea that the gay marriage amendment is dead) or proof of the fact that non-evangelicals suffered a devastating loss. This is hardly the case.
Many on the left have interpreted “moral values� to primarily mean “gay marriage� and further to interpret it as evidence of bigotry on the right, or the idea that the GOP (and Bush in particular) wants to destroy the wall of separation between church and state. This, too, is not the case.
First, for those willing to address the matter objectively: we really don’t know what voters thought “moral values� meant. Not only were voters having to interpret that category, but ex post the analysts are pouring whatever meaning they want into the concept. It could mean, to any given voter: abortion, gay marriage, honesty, integrity, general good behavior, specific religious values, family, whatever.
Second, let’s look at the numbers: “moral valuesâ€? was the leader of top issues with 22%–that means that 78% of votes had some other issue that was their top priority. Further, “economy/jobsâ€? and “terrorismâ€? where a close second and third. And more to the point, the scope of these categories is not constant. For example, should “taxesâ€? (which got 5%) be integrated into “economy/jobsâ€?? Also, should “Iraqâ€? (15%) be integrated into “terrorismâ€? into a general “securityâ€? category that would have scored 34%? Indeed, that last number underscore that this election was primarily about security (whether for or against the Bush policies).
As such, I would argue that far, far, far too much is being made, on both sides, of the significance of the “moral valuesâ€? number. Do the Democrats need to find a candidate who understands these issues in a generic sense? Yes. Is there a religion gap in the US, especially in terms of politics? Yes, there is. Is it the primary explanation of the outcome of this contest? No. However, if one has watched or read much in terms of post mortems the past week, one would think that that question scores 50% or more in the poll (and that we had a solid definition of what “moral values” means in this poll).
November 9th, 2024 at 10:35 am
So What WERE The “Moral Values” Voters Voted For?
Professional political Scientist Steven Taylor puts the issue of the importance
November 9th, 2024 at 1:41 pm
Moral Values
Much is being made on both the right and the left about the fact that “moral values” was one of the most popular reasons cited by voters for voting for Bush. Both sides are basically full of hot air on that, methinks, and
November 9th, 2024 at 2:04 pm
How Valuable Were “Values?”
Steven Taylor writes, “As such, I would argue that far, far, far too much is being made, on both sides,…
November 9th, 2024 at 2:07 pm
More on “moral values”
PoliBlog has an analysis of the “moral values” poll results that comes to similar conclusions to my commentary posted yesterday….
November 9th, 2024 at 7:28 pm
From Karl Rove on MTP:
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I do have a little bit of a different view of those numbers. First of all, if you take Iraq and terrorism and aggregate them, which I think are sort of different sides of the same coin, 34 percent of the electorate we’re concerned with, if you will, the security issue. If you take taxes and the economy and aggregate them, they’re 25 percent of the electorate and then moral values is third. That’s not to denigrate the importance of moral values which have traditionally been about 16 percent of the electorate have been concerned with that as their number one issue in past races. What essentially happened in this race was people became concerned about three issues–first, the war, then the economy, jobs and taxes, and, third, moral values. And then everything else dropped off of the plate. And security grew the most in comparison to past races but values grew second, the second most amount.
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I think that sums it up.
November 9th, 2024 at 8:39 pm
Kerry Lost Becaue of Michael Moore
I haven’t been writing much here post-election. Some of it is blogging exhaustion (and I know I hardly have much excuse for that), and part of it was due to a college reunion of sorts with the “gang”, Glenn,…
November 10th, 2024 at 11:08 am
As already described, the priority of the moral values issue is an artifact of the survey design. Had Iraq and Terror been aggregated, things would have been different.
For now, though, it suits the democrats. They know that Bush owns the war on terror. They know that their party, and their candidate, have been all over the map on the GWOT, to the extent that nobody has a clue what they really think. There is nothing to explain about that, or at least not until they have some kind of a consensus.
The moral values issue, on the other hand, came along just fine. Since nobody knows what it is, democrats can insist on what it is–disreputable–and insist that those who chose moral values are rotten and should stop voting republican or be thought of as homophobes or theocrat-wannabes.
This sort of tactic does, from time to time, shut down the weaker sort in a public discussion but does little to influence behavior in a voting booth.
Plus, the moral values issue isn’t the big issue and as long as the democrats hang on it because it’s convenient, the worse they’ll do with what really matters to the voters.
March 27th, 2024 at 7:01 am
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