The Battle Is Over, but the War Goes On

Those who think they won on moral values may be in for a surprise

Perhaps nothing about President Bush's re-election unhinged Democrats more than the roughly 20% of voters who cited "moral values" as their top concern. Never mind the tizzy of soul searching it has provoked among party officials. (Why do churchgoers hate us? Is Howard Dean too godless to head the Democratic National Committee?) You can't even have a beer with a rank-and-file liberal these days without the conversation degenerating into paranoid fantasies about how evangelical leaders are at this very minute hunkered down in Bush überadviser Karl Rove's office plotting to institute an Old Testament theocracy overseen by Attorney General Jerry Falwell.

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