It may have been a happy accident that I wrote my post on a
new Democratic language before I'd seen the conventional wisdom emerging about the role of "values" in the
Bush win. The danger of ranting without the benefit of American TV pundits, I suppose. Yes, I may just be wrong that "terrorism" was what won it. Then again, I may not be. TAPPED's
Matthew Yglesias on the "values theory":
The main basis of that analysis seems to be the rather striking fact that "moral values" were the number one issue of the largest bloc of the electorate. That, however, strikes me as a statistical artifact caused by the exit pollsters' decision to list "Iraq" and "terrorism" as two separate issues rather than, as they did in 2000, as a unified national-security or foreign-policy issue. Put the two together and you get a 34 percent bloc -- larger than the 22 percent for moral values, and larger than the combined 32 percent for the Democratic strong points on jobs, health care, and the economy.
Let's not start the next Great Awakening just yet...