Fun with election memes.

There's been some interesting revisionism going on from the right regarding Dubya's mandate, especially surrounding the issue of morality and the magnitude of the win and what it means.

The following helps put it in perspective.

From Calculusman

Consider these facts...

Wars the US has fought and had Presidential elections during:
War of 1812 (1812-1815)
Civil War (1861-1865)
World War II (1941-1945)
Korea (1950-1953)
Vietnam (1964-1972)
Iraq War (2002-????)

Now, Elections Held during these wars:
1812 Election: Madison (incumbent) defeats Clinton (128 vs. 89)
1864 Election: Lincoln (incumbent) defeats McClellan (212 vs. 21)
1944 Election: Roosevelt (incumbent) defeats Dewey (432 vs. 99)
1952 Election: No incumbent - Eisenhower wins
1964 Election: Johnson (incumbent) defeats Goldwater (486 vs. 52)
1968 Election: No incumbent - Nixon wins
2004 Election: Bush (incumbent) defeats Kerry (286 vs. 252)


So, we have 7 elections...5 of them incumbent elections. The worst any candidate perfored before 2004 was Madison in the war of 1812, only winning 59% of the electoral votes. Lincoln won 91%, Roosevelt won 81%, and Johnson won 90%.

Bush only won 53% of the electoral vote.

Now consider the charge being bandied about that this election was won because of the "morality" factor. Frank Rich (NYT registration required, sorry) eloquently calls shenanigans on the whole enterprise.

It's beginning to look a lot like "Groundhog Day." Ever since 22 percent of the country's voters said on Nov. 2 that they cared most about "moral values," opportunistic ayatollahs on the right have been working overtime to inflate this nonmandate into a landslide by ginning up cultural controversies that might induce censorship by a compliant F.C.C. and, failing that, self-censorship by TV networks. Seizing on a single overhyped poll result, they exaggerate their clout, hoping to grab power over the culture.

The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties. It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).

Atrios reasonably asks why this isn't making more of a ripple, and why the morals meme persists in spite of the facts.

Why are the Democrats not pointing this out? Are they so terrified that a Racist Radical Cleric like Dobson or Fallwell will call them "unchristian" that they can't even point out facts? Let's be clear about this. In 1996, when 40 percent of Americans based their votes on "moral values," they re-elected Bill Clinton. Now that the number of Americans who base their votes on "moral values" has been cut almost in half, they selected George Bush. And this gives the Racist Radical Clerics the ability to force their "religion" down everyone's throats?

And where's the discussion over what "moral values" means to different people? I've never thought that lining your own pocket at the public's expense, lying America into a war, or stirring up hate against minority groups were American values.

posted by MT at 1:49 PM |