[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 137 (Monday, December 6, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2161-E2162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E2161]]
                          THE ANATOMY OF MYTH

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, December 6, 2004

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, much has been written and said about the role 
``moral values'' played in the outcome of the 2004 presidential 
election. I'd like to recommend the attached article from Sunday's 
Washington Post Outlook section to my colleagues. The author, Dick 
Meyer, Editorial Director for CBSNews.com, writes about how this focus 
on ``moral values'' is, ``a neat theory--but wrong.''
  As many of us seek to evaluate this past election, I urge my 
colleagues to read this article. I agree with the author that this 
moral values perspective has been greatly overblown and does a 
disservice to a more thorough evaluation of the election.

                [From washingtonpost.com, Dec. 5, 2004]

 The Anatomy of Myth--How Did One Exit Poll Answer Become the Story of 
                      How Bush Won? Good Question.

                            (By Dick Meyer)

       Social and intellectual conventions are supposed to settle 
     slowly, but conventional wisdom can congeal instantly and 
     without much wisdom. That's what has happened over the past 
     several weeks with a prevailing interpretation of this year's 
     presidential election--the great moral values theory.
       The Big Political Idea of the '04 election goes something 
     like this: ``Moral values'' turned out to be the most 
     important issue to voters, not the economy or the Iraq war or 
     terrorism. President Bush won because a legion of ``values 
     voters''--whose growing numbers escaped the attention of an 
     inattentive media--preferred him. The Democrats are doomed 
     until they can woo the voters who belong to this new 
     political force.
       It's a neat theory--but wrong. How it came to be regarded 
     as the real story of Bush's victory is a fascinating and 
     sobering example of journalism's quest for freshness and 
     surprise.
       Here's the simple fact: The evidence that moral values 
     determined the election rests on a single dodgy exit poll 
     question. And it's not at all clear that more voters are 
     preoccupied with moral values now than were fretting about 
     ``family values'' on Election Day 1996, when exit pollsters 
     included that phrase in a question about ``priorities for the 
     new administration.'' But in the often arid and repetitive 
     arena of American political ideas, fun new contestants can be 
     hard to disqualify. The myth of the moral values election is 
     proving hard to snuff out.
       The mantra was in full hum on election night. Television 
     commentators were understandably struck by the results of the 
     question asked of almost 7,000 voters as they left their 
     polling places: ``Which one issue mattered most in deciding 
     how you voted for president?'' The most cited issue on the 
     list of seven options offered to those surveyed was ``moral 
     values'' at 22 percent; 80 percent of these voters went 
     for President Bush, 18 percent for Democratic nominee john 
     Kerry. ``Economy/jobs'' came next on the list at 20 
     percent, followed by terrorism (19 percent), Iraq (15 
     percent) and then health care, taxes and education in 
     single digits.
       Brian Healy was the CBS News producer covering the exit 
     polls, something he has done in many elections. He recalled 
     that everyone was surprised that moral values topped the list 
     as the numbers came in, but it wasn't until about 4 a.m. that 
     someone quite innocently asked, ``What exactly are `moral 
     values'?''
       Too late. The story line was already set. And the surprise 
     nature of the moral values result boosted its allure for the 
     commentariat. When the newspapers could finally write 
     definitive headlines, the notion that moral values was a 
     synonym for various conservative positions became a given--as 
     did its decisive effect on the outcome of the contest. 
     ``Faith, Values Fueled Win,'' reported the Chicago Tribune. 
     `` `Values voters' key to Bush re-election,'' declared the 
     Fort Worth Star Telegram. ``Moral Values Decide Election,'' 
     the Tri-Valley Herald in northern California told its online 
     readers.
       From the modest experiment of one exit poll question, a 
     Unified Theory of Election 2004 was hatched. Pundits began to 
     spread the word. ``Ethics and moral values were ascendant 
     last night--on voters' minds, in Americans' hearts,'' William 
     J. Bennett wrote in a column posted in the National Review 
     Online at 11:09 a.m. on the morning after the election--even 
     before Kerry's concession and Bush's victory speech.
       Several days later, American Prospect Executive Editor 
     Michael Tomasky expressed the apocalyptic Democratic 
     interpretation in his column: ``The reelection of a president 
     such as George W. Bush for the reasons the exit polls tell us 
     he evidently won is a culminating event in the political 
     retreat of modernity, a condition of existence whose 
     fundamental tenet was the triumph of scientific skepticism 
     over what used to be called `blind' faith.'' Wow.
       And on CNN's ``Crossfire,'' co-host Tucker Carlson opened 
     the Nov. 5 show with this categorical assessment: ``Three 
     days after the presidential election, it is clear that it was 
     not the war on terror, but the issue of what we're calling 
     moral values that drove President Bush and other 
     Republicans to victory this week.''
       Some reporters were even apologetic for missing the big 
     story. ``Somewhere along the line, all of us missed this 
     moral values thing,'' said CNN's Candy Crowley in a speech to 
     a Florida audience.
       Political reporters may have many things to atone for, but 
     missing ``the moral values thing'' is not one of them. Plenty 
     of commentators have tried to spike this dogma (including me 
     in one of my columns), but it has proved a stubborn 
     adversary. Let's take another swing at it.
       Yes, the issues boiled down into the code phrase ``moral 
     values'' were a factor in this election. There are voters 
     passionately concerned with gay marriage and abortion, and an 
     overwhelming number of them supported President Bush. It's 
     also clear that gay marriage ballot initiatives energized 
     these voters, as did Republican efforts to get out that vote.
       But the size and impact of that cohort has been 
     exaggerated. And the impact of other issues (war, terrorism) 
     and leadership qualities was minimized. That's mostly because 
     of oddities in the exit poll, but also because this Big 
     Political Idea conforms to what some Republican strategists 
     are peddling (and their interpretation has the added 
     credibility that winners get in writing history). It also 
     fits neatly the red/blue, ``two Americas'' school of thought, 
     which projects the country as deeply divided and at war over 
     cultural issues.
       If the national exit poll had been worded differently, 
     moral values would not have been the top issue and this 
     argument wouldn't be happening.
       If, for example, one of the choices on the exit poll list 
     combined ``terrorism'' and ``Iraq,'' it probably would have 
     been the top concern and nobody would be talking about moral 
     values.
       If economy/jobs and taxes were one item instead of two, it 
     might have been the winner. Who knows what the exit poll 
     would have found if ``truth in government'' were an option. 
     Or ``character.''
       And, most, importantly, the definition of moral values is 
     in the eye of the evaluator. Most voters probably did think 
     moral values meant being against gay marriage, stem cell 
     research and late-term abortion; but others undoubtedly 
     thought it meant helping poor people or not invading Iraq. 
     For some, moral values may have referred to character 
     attributes of the candidates. It is a bit of a Rorschach 
     test. Moral values are not a discrete, clear political issue 
     to be set next to taxes or terrorism; it's public-opinion 
     apples and oranges.
       Gary Langer, the polling director for ABC News who helped 
     design the exit poll but objected to including the moral 
     values option on the issues list, pointed out some of these 
     flaws in a Nov. 6 op-ed for the New York Times. He argued 
     that ``this hot-button catch phrase had no place alongside 
     defined political issues on the list of most important 
     concerns in the 2004 vote. Its presence there created a deep 
     distortion--one that threatens to misinform the political 
     discourse for years to come.''
       Now, to the hard question: Are there more values voters 
     than there used to be?
       In 2000, the consortium that ran the national exit poll did 
     not list ``moral values'' as an option on their issues menu. 
     At that time, it would have been seen as a question about 
     Bill and Monica, and so pretty useless. So it's hard to know 
     whether the slice of the electorate concerned with such 
     matters has grown during President Bush's term.
       We do know that in the 1996 question about the next 
     administration's priorities, ``family values'' was tops for 
     17 percent (behind the winner, ``health of the economy,'' at 
     21 percent), and that group largely went for Bob Dole. So you 
     could argue that the 17 percent whose top worry was family 
     values and went heavily Republican turned into 22 percent 
     worried about moral values in 2004. That's a slight shift, 
     but hardly a cultural tsunami--and remember, no one asked 
     these voters for their definition of family values then, or 
     moral values now.
       Nonetheless, analysts have been surfing on tidal-wave 
     conclusions. It has become a breast-beating crisis for 
     Democrats that the values voters who were 22 percent of the 
     electorate went for the Republican by a crushing margin, 80 
     percent to 18 percent. By that logic, it must follow that 
     it's a crisis for Republicans that the 20 percent who care 
     most about the economy and jobs went 80-18 for the 
     Democrat.
       Or perhaps it's a crisis for the Republicans that the 45 
     percent slice of the electorate that describes itself as 
     moderate went for Kerry 54-45? Or that first-time voters went 
     53-46 for Kerry? So many crises, so few facts to support 
     them.
       Voting behavior does divvy up Americans into certain 
     patterns. Rural residents and heavy churchgoers vote 
     Republican. City people and church-avoiders vote Democratic. 
     But these cleavages have persisted in several elections. 
     Moral values didn't just seep into the drinking water.
       Yet the myth persists. Sometimes it's perpetuated by 
     partisans claiming that Democrats are hostile to values 
     voters. ``There simply aren't enough voters in Berkeley, 
     Santa Monica, Santa Fe, Manhattan and Cambridge to offset the 
     many concerned evangelicals, Catholics and Jews in the rest 
     of the nation for whom moral values are a determining 
     issue,'' wrote Richard A. Viguerie and David Franke in a Nov. 
     15 Los Angeles Times op-ed.
       Sometimes it's perpetuated by those looking at the red and 
     blue divide. Even after many debunking pieces came out, a 
     story in

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     the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle about strained relations 
     in the Christian community noted that ``it has gotten 
     stickier than ever in the aftermath of a presidential 
     election in which moral values played a key role in keeping 
     George W. Bush in the White House.''
       A Nov. 22 op-ed in Newsday by political scientist Laura R. 
     Olson also took off from the fatal assumption. ``The much-
     touted exit poll finding that moral values were the most 
     important Election Day concern of 22 percent of voters 
     highlights the fact that a sizable number of Americans expect 
     political leaders to offer a prophetic vision,'' she wrote. 
     I'm not picking on her; that's just one example of many I 
     could have cited.
       Other scholars have tried to put the exit poll question in 
     perspective. Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political science 
     professor and director of the 2004 Election Project at the 
     University of Minnesota, wrote: ``The initial conclusion of 
     media commentators that `moral values' determined the outcome 
     of the 2004 presidential election was off the mark, 
     neglecting the impacts of partisanship and the economy.''
       Despite the best efforts of myth-busters, the moral values 
     doctrine has morphed from a simple poll finding to a grand 
     explanatory theory to gospel truth. This contaminated strain 
     of punditry needs to be eradicated before it spreads further.

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