Post-election roundup
Here’s my list of the top four don’t-miss post-election wrap-up posts:
David Brooks has some good thoughts about the “moral values” myth:
Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying “moral values.” But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn’t vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party: How You Could Have Had My Vote
I tried so hard to give you guys a chance. I’m young, I’m not extremely religious, and I’m supportive of liberal ideals like fighting for higher wages, stopping outsourcing of jobs, and standing up for the little guy. I wanted to vote Democratic this time, more than I can possibly put into words. You just didn’t give me the option.
President Bush won on values, yes, but not hatred of gays or any other stereotype you have in your head about Bush voters like me.
He won because he has values, clearly defined values, and even though I agree with little of what he believes, at least I know what he believes. At least I know that he really does believe in something. At least I know that he will do what he says he will do.
That’s disgustingly little, but unbelievably – you offered me less.
The last paragraph of Catherine Seipp’s post-election column gave me a little chill:
Then there was nothing left to do but fill out the donor card in my usual way (”Take anything that’s left”) and have my father witness it in his usual way, which means complaining mournfully and superstitiously about the very idea. He’ll never sign a donor card himself, no matter how much I argue, protesting: “What are they going to do with a 75-year-old foot?”
I can’t make him change his mind, of course, and he can’t make me change mine, which is fine. But although in this country that’s a tiny thing, perhaps it’s worth remembering that in much of the world the notion that an unmarried woman can vote differently from her father and blithely ignore his superstitions is astonishing. I hope one day it won’t be. And today I am feeling much more optimistic about this possibility.
Why Truman Beat Dewey - and Why Bush Beat Kerry:
But Dewey had weaknesses too — and the weaknesses would seem familiar to anyone following the 2004 campaign. Like John Kerry, Dewey was a smart man but a dull campaigner. And not so likeable as his opponent. A famous incident in the 1948 campaign captured that last point: At one stop Dewey’s campaign train lurched forward suddenly, whereupon the jostled candidate suggested shooting the conductor. Not so different from Kerry’s collision with a Secret Service agent on a ski slope a few months back. Kerry snapped: “That son of a bitch ran into me.” No one could imagine Bush or Truman reacting that way.