Valuing Values Voters

This past weekend, just a week after radio and television host Glenn Beck’s 9/12 rally, the special interest group Family Research Council hosted what was essentially the second Republican convention of the month: the annual Values Voters Summit. Many speakers delivered offensive comments; particularly disturbing was youth leader Jason Mattera’s chauvinistic speech about the “hotness of Republican women.” But for the most part, speakers took care not to throw civility overboard with the tea.

More unsettling to this young writer was the dismissive tone of the Democrats’ official response to keynote speaker and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s speech. After Governor Pawlenty delivered a two-part sermon to the choir on the perils of health-care reform and the importance of retaining certain traditional Judeo-Christian morals, Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan offered the following statement: “It looks like Tim Pawlenty isn’t even going to offer the pretense of being anything but an extreme right-wing radical anymore. At least it’s honest, and if you’ve seen what he’s said on health care lately, you know that’s a rare feat.”

Although Shevugan may be accurate regarding Pawlenty’s political stance, he chose an inappropriate tone for a discussion on “American values.” The response relegated a popular governor’s opinions to the wilderness of unworthy words and offered no counterpoints to Pawlenty’s take on the country’s moral path.

Sadly, Sevugan’s response is indicative of an all-too-present problem with the Democratic Party: It often dismisses talk of “values” and popular concerns with cultural breakdown. For far too long, Democrats have shunned moral language and allowed Republicans to dominate the conversation. We should stop. It is both politically unwise and undemocratic to simply disregard the deepest beliefs of any part of the American citizenry.

On September 18, liberal pundit Rachel Maddow hosted a segment on her show entitled “Should Politicians Value Values Voters?” The answer to that question should be a resounding “yes.” A recent Gallup Poll found that the majority of Americans believe the government should promote “traditional values.” Astoundingly enough, last year’s same poll marked the high point for opposition to government that promotes traditional values since Gallup started asking the question in 1993. Democrats may hold power in Washington, but it seems the country is becoming less—rather than more—socially liberal. Over the past year, more and more Americans appear to be—in the most important sense of the word—values voters.

If only for this reason and this reason only, Democrats should take care not to dismiss, ignore, or lampoon speeches about morals. Although the FRC may not represent the set of traditional values the majority of Americans wish the government to promote, it does not bode well for Democrats to dismiss their points of view as extremist. This only serves to promote the image of the party platform as a mere checklist of economic reforms—an image that has lost us more than one election in the past.

But even beyond concerns of electoral strategy, the Democratic Party would do well to change how it approaches the American values debate. Instead of pretending to operate in a moral vacuum, liberals in the United States must offer a vision of American values to contrast that of folks like Tim Pawlenty. President Obama has tried to do this for some time, but many of his supporters—especially young progressives—refuse to follow suit.

In “The Audacity of Hope,” President Obama writes that “…values—the standards and principles that the majority of Americans deem important in their lives, and in the life of the country—should be at the heart of our politics.” Remembering these words, it’s disturbing not only to hear the offhanded response of the DNC spokesperson, but also to read the comments on the Daily Kos advocating a value-free politics and listen to students talk about crazy wingnuts’ morality.

No citizen, politician, or party should run away from a debate on American values. We would all do well to remember that it is just as bad for Democrats to bleach away discussion of values as it is for their Republican counterparts to talk traditional morals in order to fearmonger. Americans navigate the world with a moral compass, and at the end of the day, ignoring public conversation about shared values could set our shared journey off course.

Raúl A. Carrillo ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.