Who Isn't A 'Values Voter'? An impressively analytical piece by Will

My apologies if this has been posted. It is a great piece though (IMO)

An aggressively annoying new phrase in America's political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives.

This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to . . . well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots.

snip

Today's liberal agenda includes preservation, even expansion, of the welfare state in its current configuration in order to strengthen an egalitarian ethic of common provision. Liberals favor taxes and other measures to produce a more equal distribution of income. They may value equality indiscriminately, but they vote their values.

snip

Attempts to assign values-seriousness can get complicated: Freedom and happiness are valuable. Arguably, governmental actions that did much to increase freedom and happiness in the past half-century were state laws liberalizing divorce. These made important contributions to the emancipation of men and especially women from mistaken marriages. Perhaps the most important of these laws -- it was among the most liberal and was in the most populous state -- was signed by a divorced governor, Ronald Reagan. What do socially conservative values voters make of that ?

The full article can be found at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051701874.html#

... shit.

In particular, I think it's a piece that's SPECIFICALLY intended to distance himself and other semi-intelligent republicans from the full-blown illiterates.

The same thing is being done in a variety of ways on the conservative side. Another commonplace is to hear about conservatives bashing the "false conservatives" ruining the "good name" of conservatism.

The whole point of Will's and the others is the AVOID admitting the failure of conservatism, and instead cast blame on the "false conservatives", and just lament the fact that TRUE conservatism never gets a fair shot.

It's a big lie couched in terms that are appealing enough to some Democrats, that it will be repeated a LOT. Kudos to Will, I suppose, for getting Democrats on board....