I've already used the CNN exit polling data to demonstrate that "Moral Values" were not, in fact, the deciding factor in the 2004 election. If you looked at the issues most important to voters, National Security and the economy were weighed more heavily than the categories that fall under the heading of "Moral Values" by a ratio of roughly 3-1. Further, if you look at the distribution of votes by people's ideological compositions- liberal, moderate or conservative- you see that 45% of Bush's support came from self-described "liberals" or "moderates." Kerry lost the center, and he was doomed because of it.

Now the Pew Research Center is taking on the conventional wisdom. Pew found that when respondents were given a choice of seven items for their "most important issue," 27% chose "moral values" and 60% chose something related to National Security or the economy. When the question was open-ended (which Pew defines as "an unprompted verbatim response to an open-ended question"), "moral values" got 14% of people's first choices and National Security and the Economy combined for 47% of people's responses. The "other" category jumped from 4% to 31%.

What does this tell us about how voters made up their minds on November 2? "Moral values" were important, to be sure, but not nearly as important as the War on Terrorism, Iraq or the economy. The whole narrative that the media has constructed since the election about not being "in touch" with Red America is therefore a confused and muddled one. Kerry didn't lose because he was perceived as "out of touch" with people in the fly-over states. He lost because those people didn't think he would protect the country from terrorists as well as George W. Bush. He lost because Bush convinced more Americans that he could improve their economic lot than Kerry did.

It won't hurt the Democrats to speak in more moralistic terms, but they shouldn't simply pander to religious groups. The Democrats of the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's and 1960's (an era of unquestioned Democratic dominance) spoke not in terms of "faith," but in terms of "right" and "wrong." Reinhold Nhiebur was their guiding philosopher. The Democrats of today- and no one embodies this more than Kerry- equivocate and speak in shades of gray. Bush is certainly not an equivocator, and that was enough to get him re-elected- despite so many obvious short comings.

I can think of very few Democrats these days who can articulate "right" from "wrong" on foreign policy issues and still be taken seriously. Joe Biden comes to mind and Joe Lieberman does as well. Neither of these men- for very different reasons- could win a Presidential election, but the next Democrat who does win one will do so by co-opting their rhetoric and, more importantly, by adopting their ideas.

Cross-posted at Mayflower Hill.