THE RISE OF THE VALUES VOTERS: Maggie Gallagher

...To its everlasting credit, the Pew Research Center has just released a new poll, "Moral Values: How Important?," that should settle this debate definitively. Pew asked respondents to select from the same seven-issue list that exit pollsters had given, and then asked those who chose "moral values" to explain what the term meant.

In the Pew poll, like the exit poll, moral values emerged as the single most important issue, named by 27 percent of the electorate, compared to 22 percent for Iraq, 21 percent for the economy/jobs, and 14 percent for terrorism.
Voters who cared most about Iraq were 34 percent of Kerry voters but just 11 percent of Bush voters. Terrorism voters constituted 24 percent of Bush voters but 3 percent of Kerry voters. David Brooks is just plain wrong: Add up the Bush voters who picked either Iraq or terrorism as their main issue and you get to only 35 percent of the Bush vote (compared to 44 percent who picked moral values). Only 4 percent of Bush voters picked taxes as their main issue. Which means that even if you create a "catch-all" category consisting of the other main GOP issues -- Iraq/terrorism and taxes -- you get to just 39 percent of Bush voters. "Moral values" is still the single most important element of the GOP coalition, at least in terms of what voters say matters to them.

But what do the voters mean by "moral values?" Here too the Pew poll makes it clear that voters were not at all confused by what they meant.

When voters who chose moral values as their most important issue were asked "what comes to mind when you think about 'moral values,'" 44 percent named specific issues (29 percent said gay marriage, 32 percent said either abortion or stem cells). Eighteen percent said something like "God, the Bible, or religion," and 17 percent said some version of "traditional values" such as "family values," "right versus wrong," living by a "moral code," or a "general decline in morality." About 23 percent gave some response that indicated a reference to the candidates' personal moral qualities. All told, 79 percent of values voters agreed that the phrase referred either to social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, or to traditional values generally, or to religion. (The numbers add up to slightly more than 100 percent because voters could list up to two items.)

Voters who did not choose "moral values" were also asked what they thought the phrase meant, and though their pattern of responses varied from the values voters (12 percent gave negative responses such as, it's a "wedge" issue used against Democrats), some 71 percent also chose either "traditional values," social issues, or religion as its core meaning. ...

Iraq and terrorism were part of the Bush victory. But without the values voters, even a wartime GOP president doesn't have a prayer.

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posted by Eve at 7:23 PM | link

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