Post by Seany-D on Nov 5, 2004 10:39:53 GMT -5
A broader morality
Originally published November 5, 2004
UNDER President Bush, few states have been as hard hit by job losses as Ohio. It has 200,000 fewer jobs than when he took office. Its unemployment rate remains at 6 percent, a half-percent more than the nation's. Given that pain, the state really shouldn't have been in doubt for the Democrats. But of course Ohio tipped the Electoral College tally for Mr. Bush. And it isn't too much of a simplification to suggest this is why:
"Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage."
This amendment to Ohio's constitution and similar measures in 10 other states were passed by voters opposed to same-sex marriages. In Ohio, the Christian right used the amendment to energize churches to turn out voters -- dovetailing by design with the campaign of a president who didn't run on his record as much as on his assertion that he knows and shares Americans' core values. So with the sinkhole of Iraq and a difficult economy, the Republicans trumped the Democrats largely by sparking those who cared most about "moral leadership."
Republicans' success in using that issue to persuade Middle America that the GOP has its interests at heart has been well explicated by many observers: President Bush rails against liberal elite values, but he's been tending the material interests of America's corporate elite -- often at the expense of his working- and middle-class supporters. The result -- an almost coast-to-coast sea of red with relatively small areas of blue on national maps of Tuesday's vote -- is breath-taking. In the last 36 years, the Democratic Party has elected only two presidents, and it's not coincidental that both, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, could speak to voters who overtly professed faith.
What is particularly significant, though, is not so much the redefining of the national debate by those concerned with moral values. It is the redefining of what constitutes a moral political stance.
Among the mistakes of the Democrats was not to broaden the definition of moral leadership. Are economic policies moral, for example, if they lead to growing poverty and a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots? Is it moral to send our sons and daughters to possibly die in a pre-emptive war without honest and sufficient justification? Sadly, those questions weren't posed as issues of moral leadership -- a term that was left far too narrowly defined.
Originally published November 5, 2004
UNDER President Bush, few states have been as hard hit by job losses as Ohio. It has 200,000 fewer jobs than when he took office. Its unemployment rate remains at 6 percent, a half-percent more than the nation's. Given that pain, the state really shouldn't have been in doubt for the Democrats. But of course Ohio tipped the Electoral College tally for Mr. Bush. And it isn't too much of a simplification to suggest this is why:
"Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage."
This amendment to Ohio's constitution and similar measures in 10 other states were passed by voters opposed to same-sex marriages. In Ohio, the Christian right used the amendment to energize churches to turn out voters -- dovetailing by design with the campaign of a president who didn't run on his record as much as on his assertion that he knows and shares Americans' core values. So with the sinkhole of Iraq and a difficult economy, the Republicans trumped the Democrats largely by sparking those who cared most about "moral leadership."
Republicans' success in using that issue to persuade Middle America that the GOP has its interests at heart has been well explicated by many observers: President Bush rails against liberal elite values, but he's been tending the material interests of America's corporate elite -- often at the expense of his working- and middle-class supporters. The result -- an almost coast-to-coast sea of red with relatively small areas of blue on national maps of Tuesday's vote -- is breath-taking. In the last 36 years, the Democratic Party has elected only two presidents, and it's not coincidental that both, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, could speak to voters who overtly professed faith.
What is particularly significant, though, is not so much the redefining of the national debate by those concerned with moral values. It is the redefining of what constitutes a moral political stance.
Among the mistakes of the Democrats was not to broaden the definition of moral leadership. Are economic policies moral, for example, if they lead to growing poverty and a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots? Is it moral to send our sons and daughters to possibly die in a pre-emptive war without honest and sufficient justification? Sadly, those questions weren't posed as issues of moral leadership -- a term that was left far too narrowly defined.
