Fear trumps religion

According to Steve Rosenthal of ACT, their post-election poll of rural and exurban voters in Ohio (a segment Bush won by 17 points) explodes the myth propagated by the 'moral values' obsessed political media. The portion of these voters who regularly attend church was actually down from 2000, they were just as likely to hear from the Kerry campaign as they were from Bush, and fewer then 2% had been contacted by a volunteer for Bush they actually knew.

Terrorism trumped other issues in Ohio and Bush won those voters 54-41%. There's more:

By 55 percent to 42 percent, voters accepted Bush's view that Iraq is a part of the war on terrorism. By 51 percent to 45 percent, they still approved of the decision to go to war (though a majority expressed concerns about how the war is going).

• Just 40 percent said they trusted Kerry to do a good job handling the war on terrorism, compared with 58 percent who felt that way about the president.

The Bush campaign was able to persuade some voters who supported Gore in 2000 to turn to Bush in 2004 on the issues of terrorism, strength and leadership. Bush bested Kerry among those who voted in 2000 by five percentage points -- Bush bested Gore in 2000 by three points.

The other major factor was our side's failure to win the economic debate. Despite an economy that was not delivering for many working people in Ohio, the exit poll results show that voters in Ohio did not see Kerry providing a clear alternative. Just 45 percent expressed confidence that Kerry could handle the economy, compared with Bush's 49 percent.

Kerry's failure to present a clear message on the economy is striking. So it really all came down to the War on Terror - whatever that means - and voters' perception that Bush was winning it, despite the fact more Americans are dying overseas in Iraq and bin Laden showed he was alive and well just days before the election.

It really makes you wonder...