Re: Wierd

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >There is no evidence that "moral values" had the remotest impact on the
> >election. It was simply a slogan people who were going to vote
> >Republican in any case grabbed on to as a simple way of explaining their
> >choice. Had the subject of moral values never been raised the election
> >returns would have been the same.
>
> Given the history of the US, the counterfactual in your last sentence
> is almost completely untethered from reality. But are you seriously
> claiming that the Chritisan right has no influence on American
> politics and the Bush administration?

I've never used the phrase before, but perhaps "overdetermined" is the
label we want here.

Before a campaign even begins there are huge blocks of votes that are
already decided. Correct?

My argument is that in that huge block of Republican voters, who would
be Republican voters under any and all conditions, are those who make a
big fuss about moral values. But they would vote Republican even if
"moral values" were not an issue. I mean, a lot of people voted for
Goldwater against Johnson. A lot of people voted for Landon against
Roosevelt. (And that before the South was Republican.) They used
different slogans then to explain to themselves and others why they were
voting Republican. This time the slogan they used was "Moral Values,"
but their vote was already determined by a whole host of reasons; The
"Moral Values" slogan was just frosting on the cake. It was not a
so-called "swing issue." The swing issue was "Don't Change Horses in the
Middle of the Stream," just as it was in 1944.

Carrol
>
> Doug