Campaign ’12 POINT-COUNTERPOINT:
The Battle For American Values
Social issues will dominate the upcoming election.
Doug Schoen: The election will be about the economy and who we are as a people. And who we are as a people means that we have full employment for everyone, that the American dream is alive and that people can get ahead. This does not include
extreme positions on social issues, but mainstream views on economic opportu- nity, American exceptional- ism, and the uniqueness of our democracy.
Kellyanne Conway: Ameri- can exceptionalism, like the Declaration of Indepen- dence and the Constitution themselves, acknowledged that we owe it all to the cre- ator, and we are endowed by human inalienable rights. And those rights begin with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those are timeless prin-
ciples, regardless of the awful state of the Obama administration economy, and the horrible expansion of government under the Obama presidency and the Democratic Congress.
34 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2012
Doug: With unemployment close to 9 percent, with eco- nomic growth under 2 per- cent, and with the income inequality in America get- ting wider and wider, the real issues are about peo- ple’s economic lives. To believe that social
issues like guns, abortion, and gay marriage have any relevance at this point is just plain wrong.
Kellyanne: That is not real- ity. So-called value voters continue to be important in every election. In fact, in 2010, which
was clearly an economic election and a rebuff of Obama’s government, 81 of the 87 new House members
SPIN ZONE
“
Values may
be in question, but that doesn’t mean people are ‘values voters’ in the sense that they vote on narrow positions.”
were pro-life. And they talk- ed about that on the cam- paign trail. Saving babies, defend-
ing traditional marriage, and protecting the Second Amendment are always going to be en vogue, the unemployment rate and the climbing national deficit notwithstanding.
Doug: You are missing the reality of today. You are substituting the views of the narrow base of the Republican Party, which I certainly acknowledge is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and pro-gun, for the views of the broad populace. This is going to be a huge
national turnout, probably pretty close to 2008, and it may well be that the narrow
Douglas Schoen is a political strategist, author, and Fox News commentator.
sliver of people who vote in the Republican prima- ries hold the views that you described, but the broad electorate, particularly swing voters, are going to vote on economic issues.
Kellyanne: Everybody’s data suggest that just 23 percent think the country’s moral values are either excellent or good, while 69 percent say that moral val- ues are getting worse. Peo- ple have a right to think that their political leaders will have a response. Barack Obama likes to
take campaign contribu- tions from gay Americans, but he does not believe in giving marriage rights to gay Americans. And therein lies the reason why many
Notable Quotes of the Month
JOE BIDEN: “The Taliban, per se, is not
our enemy.” — The vice-president, writing in Newsweek, that the U.S. should be helping Afghanistan’s government reach a position to negotiate with the Taliban — but not be overthrown by it
JOHN BOLTON: “I don’t think this is a gaffe by Joe Biden — I think he is articulating what the White House strategy is. They are going to ignore Taliban in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida in Iraq, and al-Qaida in North Africa, and they’re going to say it’s just that one little thing: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden — the war on terror is over.” — The former U.N. ambassador, responding to Biden’s remark about the Taliban, to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News
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