WHY BUSH REALLY WON

Whoa.

This essay by Robert Gelfand made me sit up straight. I could quote the entire thing, and will comment later, but for now I just put it out there.

The learned scribes and pundits who portray President George W. Bush as ignorant, irresponsible and reckless somehow have managed to miss the salient point - that is the reason Americans elected him. These unstatesmanlike qualities are considered virtues by certain voter(s), and that has been the least understood phenomenon of the last election.

[snip]

Right now, liberal-oriented political clubs and Internet-mediated organizations are continuing their fight against the Republican agenda by holding public forums and Internet discussions. They talk about how to snare the antiabortion voter or the southern Protestant. They despair over the fact that their own moral values were rejected by the other side's moral values.

It is painful to watch.

I suggest that they are barking up the wrong tree. The red state voters may have told pollsters that they were voting for moral values, but in reality they were voting for amoral values. None of them quite admitted it, but that is what they did. They had the chance to vote for a Bible-toting incumbent who managed to communicate by the wink and the nod that he would be immoral on their behalf, and they took him up on it. It was the best of all possible worlds for voters with those needs.

For the other side, it is crucial that an accurate diagnosis be made of why the Democratic Party has managed to lose once again. All the excuses going around currently lead back to the same electoral defeat because they misstate the real issues.

What do you think?