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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist

Carol Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of tOR and CRO editorial boards. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com [go to Liebau index]

Of Dubious “Values”
A Party that Stands for Anything Stands for Nothing...
[Carol Platt Liebau] 11/22/04

Since the morning of November 3, much ink has been spilled as pundits analyze the meaning of an exit poll asserting that 22% of the electorate had voted based on their “moral values.” As others like Charles Krauthammer have pointed out, the question was flawed – it asked about the one issue that mattered most in the presidential vote; “moral values,” encompassing anything from abortion to greed was the only multiple choice response, compared to specific alternatives like “jobs” or “Iraq” or “terrorism.” In fact, taken together, “Iraq” (at 15%) and “terrorism” (at 19%) were more important than moral values.

And that conclusion makes sense. Clearly, the most salient issues of this election centered on war and peace – an equation that favored the Republicans. But it’s important not to understate the “Red State” sense that, in America, there is much in the culture that has gone awry. Whether it’s the display of Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl, or the ACLU’s campaign to drive the Boy Scouts into obscurity, or Target’s decision to evict Salvation Army bell ringers from their parking lots this Christmas season, many Americans have begun to feel that their values are under constant siege from an out-of-touch cultural elite that neither understands nor respects what matters most to them.

With partisans including the CBS and New York Times on the east coast to Hollywood on the west, the Democrats are indisputably the party of the cultural elite. And on some level, many ordinary Americans in both red states and blue hold this fact against them.

But there is one more reason that “values” issues have come back to haunt the Democrats – and we were forcibly reminded of him last week: Bill Clinton. Throughout the ‘90’s, Democrats defended Clinton slavishly – from draft dodging to not inhaling to the travel office firings to Whitewater to Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers and Juanita Broaddrick. From political donors’ White House sleepovers to the missing files found in Hillary’s closet to LippoGate, Johnny Chung and political donations from the Chinese to “I did not have sex with that woman” to the Marc Rich pardon. Nominally “pro-woman” politicians like Senator Barbara Boxer – who had made her reputation marching from the House to the Senate demanding a hearing for Anita Hill – revealed themselves to be hypocrites, defending a President who lied under oath and was credibly accused of rape. And other Democrats, like Al Gore, found themselves excusing behavior that they themselves knew was contemptible, wrong and deeply damaging to America.

Democrats always, always defended Clinton. Americans liked his charisma, charm – and the skyrocketing stock market – and Clinton’s most visible adversaries paid the price. Some of the most reviled figures of the ‘90’s were Newt Gingrich – who retired from politics when Clinton’s party gained seats in the midst of impeachment – and the hapless Ken Starr, saddled with an investigation he had tried to renounce when he was offered the Pepperdine Law School deanship. Other Clinton political casualties included Congressman Jim Rogan, a member of the House impeachment team, who lost his congressional seat in 1998.

But finally Clinton left The White House – and memories of his personal charm began to fade. And in a recessionary, post-9/11 world, the luster of his tenure began to tarnish. Perhaps without even consciously realizing it, the American people began to suspect that a political party that would stand for anything really stands for nothing. Over time, the Clinton years, with the drip, drip, drip of constant lies and scandal, left a bitter taste in many Red State mouths. And now the Democrats are paying the price.

No, “moral values” alone – whether the term refers to gay marriage, abortion or even concerns about greed and materialism – didn’t sweep President Bush to victory. But the security-based, pro-Republican tide was certainly swelled by a growing sense that the Democratic Party that defended Bill Clinton with such ferocious intensity – and celebrated his tenure at their convention – was unlikely either to understand or address most Americans’ deep and growing concerns about our increasingly polluted culture. tOR

Columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com

copyright 2004

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