Ohio "values-voters"

Ryan Sager, NY Post columnist theorizes in his Feb 27, 2005 column that the value vote for the GOP is a trap, which will cause them to lose future elections. He disagrees that "values voters" won the election. He starts by quoting Blackwell's remarks from the Conservative Political Action Conference's Feb 17 - 19 meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.:

"I want to make sure that there are no revisionists here among us. The reality is that the values voters won Ohio and won the presidency for George Bush."

Sager marshalls up for his evidence that Iraq was more important since 34% of the voters considered terrorism/Iraq the most important issue and a paltry 22% "moral values". Furthermore, both presidential campaigns saw the race as who was better suited to lead the The War on Terror. Finally he found two NJ Republicans at CPAC who were pro-God and pro-civil unions.

Sager writes that things look bad for the Republians if the following happen:
1) Dems field a credible war candidate;
2) TWOT fades as an issue and allows 'security moms' to re-become 'soccer moms'; and,
3) GWB's Soche Security initiative fails to convert voters over to the GOP's side since Wall Street & NY have many financiers who vote Democrat.

Sager's op-ed requires some corrections.
1) He does not address how much of Bush's support came from that 34% and 22%, respectively. Iraq was a pretty important issue to Michael Moore and he voted for Kerry. The Pew Research Center contradicts Sager by reporting that out of an open-ended question of what was the main issue why you voted for your candidate, Bush received 28% from Iraq/TWOT, aggregated, and 27% from values voters. Kerry received 2% from values-voters, 39% from terror and 0% from Iraq.

2) The Dem primary voters rather convincingly ousted the DNC war-hawk candidates, Gephardt and Liebermen. Neither candidate ever won more than 10% of the primary vote.

3) The 18-30 group votes a lot less than any other age group, so their views on gay marriage matter less. They also failed to show up for Howard Dean in the primary. Since Parties are groups of competing coalitions and the GOP has the over-30 "values voter" sown up, the Bush and Rove now seek an issue that appeals to the younger crowd. This will increase the GOP's vote since people tend to become more conservative as they age.

4) Sager does not address what was the "values-vote" in 2000 as compared to 2004. If there was an increase in the values vote for '04, then the pro-marriage laws worked.

Visit the Pew Research Center or Maggie Gallagher from National Review Online to get a better look.

In the end Sager's commentary is sweet to the tongue, but bitter to the belly. It looks good at first glance but falls apart upon further reasoning.

Please e-mail the Editor-in-Chief with any questions.