"Moral Values" and the 2004 Election

Only non-religious liberals, especially within the media, could have been surprised that “Moral Values” would become this year’s biggest voter concern. Or that John Kerry, a man of obvious moral sentiments and convictions, would thoroughly flunk a moral values test that he should have passed with honors. How did he manage to do it, anyway?

The easy answer is that the Senator’s own moral values were too far out of synch with those of a large majority of the electorate. But this answer will not get us very far. Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush took pretty much the same positions on the most important issues of the campaign, such as finishing things in Iraq, protecting against terrorism, the need for health care reform, creating new jobs with better than living wages, and on at least one very “hot button” issue, gay marriage. They did drift apart on stem cell research, but nowhere near as much on abortion.

A better way to account for Senator Kerry’s being perceived as too far out on moral values is in terms of his personal disposition and temperament, in contrast with the President’s. It was not so much what values the two men held; it was the way each expressed his own. Bush was, is, and always will be loudly vocal about values; Kerry became so only after a good bit of reluctance, when it was for all practical purposes too late. Hesitance is not highly prized in our society; if you are afflicted by it, you will be better off not letting it ooze out from behind public podiums. By contrast, standing up for what you believe, with neither nuance nor doubt, will get you elected almost every time.

But we still need to go deeper. For behind the stylistic differences between Bush and Kerry were values of a quite different kind than either discussed very articulately in the campaign. These represent a kind of values that do not typically take the form of rules prohibiting and prescribing specific behaviors in highly circumscribed spheres of life, as in “no late term abortions,” “marry someone of the opposite sex only,” or “support our men and women in uniform.” Rather, they express broad principles, in the language more of aspiration than of accomplishment. As ethicists put it, the reason why these higher-order moral values are not easily translated into particular political programs, plans, and strategies is because they constitute the bases of any and all programs, plans, and strategies, political and otherwise.

What we are talking about here, as Bush One might put it, is “the vision thing” all over again, particularly the vision of a country that is always and at the same time safe and free. If America is ever to become that shining city on a hill on which the rest of the world will gaze admiringly and gratefully, it can become so only when these two overarching moral values can be maintained in comfortable balance. We are not there yet, but we have been working on it for almost 400 years now, and just about everything we have done to establish government of, by, and for the people can be viewed as one long, continuing experiment to ensure God’s promise of security and gift of liberty, together.

The operative word here is “together.” Achieving either security or freedom is never particularly difficult. But the price is always steep. Realizing only one of these values necessarily demands giving up the other. The better course is to honor both, even if it means that from time to time we choose one direction --- toward security is what the majority seem now to want --- before we shift back toward the middle ground, as circumstances permit. John Kerry lost his bid for the Presidency because he too strongly emphasized ensuring liberty before people were quite ready to go that route with him.

If liberals are to recover from their latest drubbing on the “moral values” playing field, the first thing they must do is seize the right to define themselves from the conservatives who gleefully stole it from them. Then, they must begin re-framing the terms of the next round of debate on “moral values”, by acknowledging openly that our most cherished moral values are also religious ones. And while they are working up a sweat on their side of the field, conservatives should be doing more push-ups in the end zone on the notion that ensuring both security --- their own supreme value --- and liberty --- the liberals’ strongest value --- is worth everyone’s best efforts. They would do well to consider that there are no “moral values” worth honoring on only partisan, ideological terms, whether in politics or religion.