Anti-Climacus

LINK: Chris Lawrence has an interesting discussion up on the Democrats' problem with 'values voters.' To wit:

"More to the point, one has to wonder about a national Democratic Party that can’t even secure the paltry share of the white vote in a state like Mississippi it would need to be competitive, but it’s unlikely to see an improvement until the party gets over its Dean-esque arrogance that Southerners need to stop voting on “guns, God, and gays” and come to the conclusion that they need to respect (even if it’s only to the point of respectful disagreement) those Americans who care deeply about those things."

Part of what strikes me as the problem is that the typical Democratic analysis (such as it exists) of why people vote on moral issues tends to get it entirely wrong: Democrats work themselves up into a lather over how the 'objective' results of a policy are so bad, but they never really seem to ask what the relevant bit of motivation is. As a result, Democrats who run for office (like, for example, John Kerry) mouth what they take to be the right platitudes to win over values voters ("I am personally opposed to abortion" or somesuch*). But those platitudes are about the results of policies, not the reasons for supporting them in the first place. Until Democrats understand that critical difference, they're not going to have much success in the south or west.

In a similar vein proposals about re-casting things in moral terminology seem to me to be of dubious effectiveness. Most moral systems (of values voters, anyway) aren't infinitely expansive--ideas are either in or they're out, and I think most people can tell the difference between a Democratic proposal put in moral terms and a Democratic proposal that comes from a moral understanding. I tend to think this would be rather easier for Democrats to do (it'd probably be easier if they were deontologists, but most things in life would be easier if that were the case).