Jerry Large / Times staff columnist
Moral to the election: Time to build on values we all share

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Moral values are a tricky thing.

For instance, most people would agree that we ought to help people who are in need. But people disagree about how to help.

Do we leave it to individuals to step up and lend a hand, or do we make social and economic help an obligation of the community as a whole, like fighting fires or policing the streets? Some mix of the two makes the most sense. Needy people are news between Thanksgiving and the end of December, but they aren't on most people's minds much during the rest of the year. They don't go away, but our individual attention often does.

So what should the mix of personal giving and government (community) responsibility be? Well, it depends on what a given person's beliefs are. It's one of the issues over which the country is split, a shared moral value that yields a hot political divide.

Too many people paint anyone who disagrees with their way of enacting a moral value as lacking in morality.

Moral values were supposed to be big in this year's election, but the term itself makes that assumption problematic.

Fewer Americans said moral values were a top issue this year than said it was during the 1992 presidential campaign, but you wouldn't think that if you've followed reporting on this year's election.

People, if they are just asked to list what is important to them, almost never say moral values. But they'll pick it if it's on a list, and I suspect that's because they think they are supposed to.

That's what happened this year, according to Robert J. Blendon.
 
Blendon is professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health, and he directs the Harvard Opinion Research Program and the Henry J. Kaiser National Program on the Public, Health and Social Policy. Well, that's about half of what he does anyway, so he ought to know something.

Blendon says moral values was on the CNN exit poll for the first time (the media wanted some way to measure the impact of the Christian right on the election), and that is what most reporters based stories on. So they came away thinking gay marriage rallied the religious right and gave Bush the election. The marriage issue did have some impact, but it wasn't the deciding factor.

Stories overemphasized gay marriage and understated the admiration a lot of voters have for George Bush's character. For a lot of people, the person is more important than a given issue.

People care about honesty and integrity and if they see that in a candidate, even if other people don't, they'll support him.

Just think about some of the governors Louisiana has had, or Marion Barry, who keeps getting elected to one office or another in D.C. despite his personal troubles. People will go with the person who seems to be their guy, even if he really isn't all that good for them. It's hard to overcome that with facts, because it's all about a gut feeling.

Blendon based his interpretations on Los Angeles Times exit polls, which have included moral issues since 1992.

Forty percent of voters said moral issues mattered, but that's a catch-all phrase. When you get down to specifics, things change. Only 15 percent of voters this year said social issues such as abortion and gay marriage were the most important issues for them.

The people who opted to stick with Bush believe his character is shaped by values they share.

"They liked his style, which they believe follows from his Christian beliefs ... he sees right from wrong ... sticks with his choices," Blendon says.

Blendon, by the way, thinks John Kerry would be president-elect if he had been able to explain clearly what he would do about jobs and the economy, which had lots of voters concerned. Thirty-three percent of voters picked jobs and the economy as their top issue.

Is economic justice a moral issue? Is war a moral issue? Who decides what qualifies as a moral issue? In American politics lately, it's mostly been folks on the right, while other folks have left their moral beliefs out of debates about policy issues.

Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace, says the argument over the place of religion in politics has been largely an argument among white people.

Black Americans have always mixed religion and politics. The civil-rights movement was rooted in the black church. The two can mix without one overwhelming the other.

And it's important to remember that moral values aren't just a matter of religion. Most people have a sense of morality.

We need to change the nature of our arguments from who has moral values and who doesn't, to figuring out how we can build workable compromises based on the values we share.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.

His column runs Thursdays and Sundays and is found at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.