[Marxism] More grist for Thomas Frank's mill

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, September 19, 2004
For Many in Missouri, Picking a President Is More a Matter of Values Than
Policy
By DIANE CARDWELL

ST. CHARLES, Mo. - Tom Ampleman, a blue-collar union member who lives near
this suburb just outside St. Louis, says he voted for Bill Clinton twice
and then Al Gore, but he is now grappling with deep religious misgivings
about the Democratic Party.

"I haven't declared myself a Republican, but if I had to go in there and
vote right now I probably would vote for the Republicans," Mr. Ampleman
said recently, sitting in his pickup truck at a public park here.

"I'm not happy with the moral issues at all with the Democrats," continued
Mr. Ampleman, who works as a welder at an aerospace company. "The
Republicans will hurt me in the long run in providing for my family, but
it's probably more important to watch out for the unborn and that kind of
stuff."

Missouri, almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, straddles
the Midwest, the Deep South and the Great Plains, and has some of the
sensibility of each region. Elections can turn on the interests of labor
unions, farmers, city dwellers or suburban parents.

But Mr. Ampleman's internal tug of war, echoed in different ways in
interviews with dozens of voters throughout the state, begins to explain
why Republicans are increasingly confident they can prevail here this year,
even as Democrats say they remain hopeful of winning Missouri's 11
electoral votes.

Residents from blighted city neighborhoods and gritty industrial outskirts
to the leafy suburban enclaves and vast stretches of rolling hills and open
farmland exude anxiety over the economy and the Iraq war that Senator John
Kerry, the Democratic nominee, hopes to transform into votes. But they also
echo the Christian-influenced social values and distaste for big government
and taxes that helped propel President Bush to the White House. In August,
a referendum on a proposed amendment to the State Constitution banning gay
marriage was approved with 71 percent of the vote.

The cultural divisions run deep, even within families. Take Paula D.
Hamilton, an African-American financial adviser who lives in Raytown, a
middle-class suburb of Kansas City. Over the years she has swung between
parties, and this time around she too is in a quandary.

She says she is impressed with Mr. Bush's strong stance on terrorism but
unsure whether the country should have gone to war with Iraq. She finds Mr.
Bush's emphasis on religion-based solutions to social problems appealing,
but worries about jobs lost during his administration and what she calls an
unfair tax burden on the middle class.

"I'm really thinking about who I'm going to vote for," Ms. Hamilton said,
after hearing Vice President Dick Cheney speak at a rally in Springfield,
some three hours' drive south of her home. "We need someone in our office
who doesn't cower down," she continued. But, she added: "I'm looking at the
numbers, at how many of our troops are being killed and tortured. I'm just
concerned."

Ms. Hamilton said that she would probably not make up her mind until she
walked into the voting booth. But her son, Zacqrey Woods, pastor at the
Greater Metropolitan Baptist Church in Springfield - "the buckle of the
Bible Belt," as he put it - has no such difficulties.

"I can't get past the moral issues, I just can't," said Mr. Woods. "So I
cannot in any way support the Democratic Party," because of his objections
to abortion and homosexuality.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/politics/campaign/19state.html


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