I’ve run across an interesting addendum to my previous entry, an article from the Washington Post called “The Anatomy of a Myth”. To view the article, you’ll need to register with the WaPo — which is free and painless — or you could try a generic login courtesy of bugmenot.com. If you’re at all interested in this “moral values” angle on the election, it’s well worth a look. The author, Dick Meyer, is the editorial director of CBSNews.com, and he provides an insider’s perspective into how this story evolved from a simple question into accepted fact, even though, in his opinion, it’s total bunk.

In Meyer’s own words, “the evidence that moral values determined the election rests on a single dodgy exit poll question. And it’s not at all clear that more voters are preoccupied with moral values now than were fretting about ‘family values’ on Election Day 1996, when exit pollsters included that phrase in a question about ‘priorities for the new administration.’ But in the often arid and repetitive arena of American political ideas, fun new contestants can be hard to disqualify. The myth of the moral values election is proving hard to snuff out.”

In support of his (and my) notion that moral values wasn’t as big a deal as the punditocracy would have it, Meyer quotes Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political science professor and director of the 2004 Election Project at the University of Minnesota, who wrote: “The initial conclusion of media commentators that ‘moral values’ determined the outcome of the 2004 presidential election was off the mark, neglecting the impacts of partisanship and the economy.”

Meyer then raises an excellent point that I failed to include in my own thinking on this issue, namely the fact that no one ever defined exactly what these “moral values” that everyone is so concerned about actually are. The actual exit-poll question didn’t define the term, and none of the reporters who started this ball rolling did either. The assumption that “moral values was a synonym for various conservative positions became a given… [but] the definition of moral values is in the eye of the evaluator. Most voters probably did think moral values meant being against gay marriage, stem cell research and late-term abortion; but others undoubtedly thought it meant helping poor people or not invading Iraq. For some, moral values may have referred to character attributes of the candidates. It is a bit of a Rorschach test. Moral values are not a discrete, clear political issue to be set next to taxes or terrorism; it’s public-opinion apples and oranges.”

That really is an interesting point, isn’t it? When I was carrying on about how liberals are just as moral (or immoral) as Republicans, I sort of nibbled around the edges of the idea that the two sides define “morality” in different terms, but I didn’t really think to expand upon it. (I was too busy being indignant over the idea that half the country thinks my half is immoral, and pointing out the hypocrisy of that position.) Perhaps, from the perspective of differing definitions, Democrats really are out of touch with the moral values of the majority — which, of course, consists of slightly over half the electorate — but by the same token, Republicans are equally out of touch with the values of the minority, which in this case is just slightly under half of the electorate. (I keep emphasizing the “half” because the majority and minority at this point aren’t all that far apart, numerically speaking, and I think it’s vital that we keep that in mind whenever we discuss them.)

Meyer plays these games of perspective, too, using them to console the liberals who have been wanting to open their veins because of this suggestion that the religious folk don’t like them: “It has become a breast-beating crisis for Democrats that the values voters who were 22 percent of the electorate went for the Republican by a crushing margin, 80 percent to 18 percent. By that logic, it must follow that it’s a crisis for Republicans that the 20 percent who care most about the economy and jobs went 80-18 for the Democrat.

“Or perhaps it’s a crisis for the Republicans that the 45 percent slice of the electorate that describes itself as moderate went for Kerry 54-45? Or that first-time voters went 53-46 for Kerry? So many crises, so few facts to support them.”

My sentiments exactly. I think this year, more than in any other since I became interested in politics, it has become obvious that you can spin something like an election a hundred ways to breakfast and still not come up with an objective “truth” about what happened, aside from the bottom-line reality that one side won, the other side lost, and now it’s time to figure out how we’re going to approach the next go-round.

If you have the time and interest, check out Meyer’s complete article. It’s well worth your trouble.