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[Marxism] A Glimpse into the Mind-Set of WC Bush Voters



'It's a Victory for People Like Us'

By David Finkel
Washington Post
November 6, 2004

SHEFFIELD LAKE, Ohio -- Here on Redwood Drive, in the little house with
the white picket fence, these first days after the election are good days,
happy days, blessed days.

"Dear Lord," Cary Leslie is saying for the sixth time since waking up at
3:45 a.m. to go to work. He has prayed for strength not to hit the snooze
button on the alarm clock. He has prayed for a safe day for his wife and
three children. He has prayed for patience with the foul-tempered customers
he deals with at the car-rental counter. He has prayed for a job that will
pay enough for a struggling family of five to keep up with the bills. He has
prayed for a quick resolution to the presidential election. And now, with
the election decided, he is thanking God for listening to his prayers.

Tara Leslie, Cary's wife, has been praying for President Bush, too, and now
she is saying, "I think it's so important to have a society of moral
absolutes."

"It's really good to know our country had a decision to make, and there are
so many people who feel this way," Cary says. "It's a victory for people
like us."

The Leslies: They are George W. Bush votes come to life. The millions of
voters who describe themselves as "white evangelicals," 77 percent of whom
voted for Bush? That's the Leslies. The voters who said "moral values" was
the single issue that mattered most to them, 80 percent of whom voted for
Bush? That's the Leslies, too.

They are precisely the people the Bush campaign built its reelection
strategy on -- people who would put faith-based moral values above every
other consideration when it came time to vote, including the war in Iraq,
terrorism, the economy and, in the Leslies' case, a life that has been in
financial peril since Sept. 11, 2001.

He is 29. She is 27. They have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and a
6-month-old, and they are thinking of having one more. They oppose abortion,
favor a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between
a man and a woman, and want more Supreme Court justices like Anton Scalia
and Clarence Thomas. They eat at home and shop at Wal-Mart. They home-school
their 5-year-old and are members of the nondenominational Church on the
Rise, which is "committed to helping families hold down the family fort in
the 21st Century," according to its literature, and where the senior pastor
says 90 percent of the 1,200 congregants voted for Bush.

"Religious kooks," Cary says, imagining how some people might think of
them. His own description: "We're pretty boring people. Normal people."

Normal people who, as this week has progressed, have found themselves
increasingly happy about the state of America.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A26469-
2004Nov4&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle





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