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Values, Character, Morality and Worldview Counts

Morality does matter and character does count. In their analysis of the election results several insightful bloggers are concluding that values and voter's and candidate's worldviews played a substantial role in voter decisions. Here is a round-up of excerpts.

From Joshua Claybourn:

In my estimation, there is a stronger undercurrent driving this election; something more than terrorism or the economy. That undercurrent is a culture war pitting traditional values against more progressive ones. In 11 states voters approved constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, making it a clean sweep for advocates of marriage's traditional definition. Churches and value-driven voters came out in droves, and when they did they voted overwhelmingly for the president. Karl Rove has always said that nearly 4 million evangelical voters didn't vote for Bush in the 2000 election and they had every intention of changing that.

The Evangelical Outpost concurs, adding

It was embryo destruction, not the economy. It was partial-birth abortion, not terrorism. It was same-sex marriage, and not the war in Iraq. If you want to see what killed the Democrats chances of regaining the White House just look at the issues we’ve been discussing on this blog for the past year. Exit polls show that in many states, “moral values” was a bigger issue than either the economy or terrorism. One in five voters throughout the Midwest was an evangelical. In Ohio, the state that will put the President over the top, that number was 25%, with Bush taking 75% of the evangelical vote.

The importance of one's worldview has been a favorate topic of The Dawn Treader. He sees the election as a confirmation of this.

My conviction that worldviews really matter was confirmed. From worldviews come ideas, from ideas come policies and positions. To change a person’s position, you need to change their assumptions about reality and truth. Changing presuppositions can happen, but in my experience, it takes more than words to do it. It takes a relationship as well. It is a matter of changing both the heart and mind. Words alone will not do it.

Moral values are pointed to by Imago Dei.

Many voters cited moral values as the most important issue in this election, over Iraq, terrorism, and the economy. From everything I have read so far, this surprised the pollsters, who had not expected this issue to be very important to most voters. What accounts for this last minute importance of this issue in many voters minds after not even being mentioned before the election? Let's just say that I certainly believe the prayers are answered.

Jeff Jarvis via a Physicist's Perspective points to the NBC Exit poll.

The NBC exit poll includes some fascinating and surprising data. Among the issues that mattered most to voters, the top issue was not terrorism or Iraq. The top issue (21%) was "moral values"; 78% of those who cared about that went for Bush, 19% for Kerry. That's a huge difference.

He Lives suggests why Christians came out to vote:

Here is a simple analysis that I think is beyond refute. Bush’s election is due to one person alone. Not Rove, who almost cost Bush the election, but Margaret Marshall. When Marshall, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, wrote an opinion that the Bay State’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, and in a self righteous fit of activism demanded that the legislature legalize it, which they were quite willing to do in a “thank you sir may I please have another” kind of way, she dove headfirst into the law of unintended consequences.

Her activism ultimately resulted in the energizing of the Christian vote, a vote that in large numbers had said “thanks but no thanks” in 2000, resulting in Gore’s plurality.

The Washinton Times clearly documents voters' belief that moral values are important.

Moral values topped the list of issues voters were most concerned about when they went to the polls on Election Day, with Catholics, evangelicals, blacks and Hispanics joining an ad hoc coalition that re-elected President Bush by 3.5 million votes.

A national exit poll of 13,531 voters found 22 percent cited moral values as the "most important issue," with the economy and jobs second at 20 percent and terrorism at 19 percent, according to a joint survey by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International. Iraq came in fourth at 15 percent.

Posted by tim at November 3, 2004 12:05 PM

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