Moral issues decide US election

By DAVID USBORNE

Call it the anti-Janet Jackson boob vote, if you like. The pro-gun vote, the anti-gay-marriage vote or the Jesus vote.

For all the strategising in both parties on which of the key popular concerns was most likely to win the election for their candidate - would it be Iraq, terrorism or matters of the wallet? - it may have been none of the above. The trump card appears to have been moral issues.

When they look back at this election, historians will see one trend above all others, and it clearly worked in favour of President George W. Bush and against Senator John Kerry.

Voters, especially in the heartland states, took moral values as their core standard in deciding.

Even if it meant voting against their more obvious economic interests and even when they harboured misgivings about the war in Iraq, voters everywhere found themselves guided by moral issues first.

Family values means less about food on the table than about God at the table.

And as these questions come to the fore, so the country appears to have shifted culturally to the right.

Strikingly, ballot initiatives to ban marriage for same-sex couples were before voters in 11 states - and they passed in all of them.

In some, even existing domestic partnership rights will now be taken away. Perhaps the country was always thus, but either way it will give Democrats grave reason to worry.

Their man was a Catholic, a war hero, and yet he still failed to connect with the conservative mainstream. Can a candidate with even remotely socially liberal positions ever win again?

For evidence, you need look no further than exit polls. Most surprisingly, a Los Angeles Times national survey found that more than half of voters for Bush cited moral issues as the main reason for their support. They were more important to his supporters even than terrorism.

And then look at what was in the heads of Kerry supporters. They cited the economy as their top concern over moral issues by a margin of about two to one.

Another survey taken in the three most important battleground states found that moral issues were first on the agenda of Bush voters in Ohio and almost their top concern in Florida and Pennsylvania, coming second only to terrorism.

The political polarisation of America is thus also cultural. And deepening that division are matters of religious affiliation and degrees of religious zeal. About one-fifth of voters describe themselves as born-again Christians and they voted enthusiastically for Bush as "one of them" by roughly four to one. Among regular church-goers Bush was the winner handily. Kerry fared better with occasional worshippers.

It is part of what appears to have lost Florida for Kerry. The incumbent took more than half the Protestant and Catholic vote in the state - and about eight in 10 Floridians belong to one of those religions.

"As a Christian, Bush upholds the morals and values that I believe the constitution was built on," explained Brett Williamson, a 20-year-old student in Tallahassee.

Echoed Chris Pierson, an Orlando nurse: "I believe in many of the same values as he does - against same-sex marriage, and not taking God out of the constitution."

For decades, the Democrats depended on inner-city churches, many of them Baptist with mostly black congregations, to bring out crucial chunks of support on election day. Now the Church Factor has become powerful for Republicans instead. Around the country, they were a crucial force in encouraging Bush voters to register and vote.

A sign of the conservative shift may be the anti-gay marriage ballots, passed in Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Georgia and Ohio. And with the exception of Ohio, they went through by very large margins. It is in Ohio where existing domestic partnerships maybe stripped immediately from gay and lesbian couples.

The only stand-out in the trend was a vote in California - which voted heavily for Kerry - where voters strongly supported funding of stem cell research, which Bush opposes.

Kerry's big mistake then? Maybe that he simply couldn't shake the liberal label that Bush plastered on him.

If perceived liberalism is a handicap in Florida, it seems to be poison in the heartland states. And that is where the Democrats will have to do some serious thinking.

"On values," remarked Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns, "they are really non-competitive in the heartland. This kind of elitist, eastern approach to the party is just devastating in the Midwest and western states. It's very difficult for senatorial, congressional and even local candidates to survive."

Kerry went goose hunting. He withheld offering support for gay marriage. He talked tough on defence and the military.

But still it was not enough. He could cite economic statistics till the cows came home.

But where there are cows in America, there are fewer and fewer Democrats.

- INDEPENDENT