Elections 2004 Analysis     11/3/2004
By Staff

Accurate as of 5 a.m., November 3

CWA Encouraged by Election Results
We are certainly encouraged by last night's results. I believe the American voters stood behind the president who clearly stood strong for our issues - on life, on American sovereignty and many others.

To hear Mrs. LaHaye's personal thoughts on the elections, please click here.

For additional audio and election news, please visit our website.

In a remarkable show of support for marriage, 11 states with constitutional marriage amendments on the ballot passed them overwhelmingly, with Mississippi leading the pack with 85 percent.

Even Oregon, the only state said to be "in play" on the issue, was heading toward passage, with 56 percent of voters approving it. North Dakota defended marriage with a 79 percent vote, and Georgia passed its amendment with 77 percent.

With a majority of precincts reporting, the states and their winning totals include:

Arkansas - 74 percent
Georgia - 77 percent
Kentucky - 75 percent
Michigan - 61 percent
Montana - 66 percent
Mississippi - 85 percent
Ohio - 62 percent
North Dakota - 75 percent
Oklahoma - 74 percent
Oregon - 56 percent
Utah - 73 percent

Of the 11 states, eight also barred recognition of civil unions, domestic partnerships, or other same-sex replicas of marriage. Mississippi, Montana and Oregon voted only on a man-woman definition of marriage.

The amendments undoubtedly had "pull" for many pro-family candidates, from the president on down. President Bush prevailed in all but Oregon and possibly Michigan, which was still in doubt at this writing. In Kentucky, Sen. Jim Bunning trailed Democratic state Sen. Daniel Mongiardo through most of the evening until late returns came in from the rural, Western portions of the state. Bunning apparently won his re-election by 50.6 to 49.4 percent.

In Georgia, CWA State Director Tanya Ditty was celebrating the victory last night.

"We're at 77 percent. That sends a mandate for every school board in our state if they try to push a homosexual agenda," she said. "We battled for it in the Legislature, got it on the ballot, and fought the ACLU. It was only last week that the courts finally said, 'We're not going to touch it.' So all of our hard work just shows that the people here in Georgia stand for marriage."

Support for the amendment transcended political parties, as black church-goers supported the Georgia measure while still voting heavily for Democratic candidates, such as liberal Cynthia McKinney, who reclaimed a congressional seat in the Atlanta area that she had lost in a primary two years ago.

Oregon was barraged by homosexual activists, who had announced weeks ago that they were pouring major resources into that state in order to avoid a nationwide sweep on the marriage issue. The Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual pressure group, put a reported $500,000 into the effort, and sent staff to Oregon as well.

With the addition of Missouri and Louisiana, which passed their amendments earlier by margins of 71 percent and 78 percent, respectively, that makes 13 total states that amended their constitutions to protect marriage this year.

In addition, Virginia's Legislature earlier this year enacted the most comprehensive statute in the nation protecting marriage and barring any state recognition of same-sex relationships.

With the smashing national consensus on marriage, legislators and pro-family activists in other states are expected to move quickly to enact more marriage amendments in 2005, and momentum could carry over to a renewed effort to enact a federal marriage amendment as well.

The 2004 election means a smashing victory for conservative leadership in the Senate. No race appears bigger than the apparent loss of Senate Minority Leader Daschle (D) of South Dakota. The contrast could not be more stark on issues of life, marriage and the war. Although this race is close, it appears at this writing that the outcome will not change.

Meanwhile Republicans increased the Senate majority with a possible four additional seats. Rep. David Vitter ran a smashing campaign to become the first Republican in Louisiana to win a Senate seat since the Civil War. Rep. Vitter is a proven pro-family fighter who has taken on the abortion and gambling industries.

Strong social conservative Rep. Richard Burr (R) easily won North Carolina, while stalwart conservative Rep. Jim DeMint (R) cruised to victory in South Carolina. Finally, moderate Republican Johnny Isakson, who does claim to be pro-life, easily won Georgia, taking another seat away from Democrats.

One of the best friends of Concerned Women for America (CWA) and social conservatives across America is Tom Coburn (R), who won a bruising Senate race in Okalahoma despite his opponent's ugly assaults on his good character. Tom Coburn, along with the senators just mentioned above, will make the Senate a much more conservative body. Clearly, votes for the unborn will get a far friendlier hearing in the new Senate than the old. The reality is that Democrats can still maintain a filibuster, but will find themselves on dangerous ground as they continue to sink into minority status.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans appear to have picked up five additional seats to increase their overall majority, although nearly a dozen races are too close to call at this time. The big news in the House is that Republicans picked up six seats in Texas as well as a seat against Hollywood actor George Clooney's dad, Nick, for whom Hollywood failed to deliver the seat in Kentucky. The one Republican incumbent upset for the night is Rep. Phil Crane in Illinois who has lost his congressional seat.

The increased majority in the House and the Senate and what looks like a win for President Bush should advance the pro-family issues in Congress and help ensure that conservative judges can be appointed.

For the first time in decades, it wasn't the economy, stupid. It was morals that decided the presidency of 2004. Evangelicals came out strong for the president and everybody knows it.

President George W. Bush has the God-given opportunity to become the statesman of the century.

A second-term president is free from the persistent pressure of political advisors whose chief concern is getting him re-elected. Moral clarity rises above the ground fog of conflicting interests.

The president won by convincing Americans that he is a decisive leader with a clear vision, unafraid of making tough decisions and stands for the moral values of mainstream America.

Exit polls indicate that 81 percent of those who voted based on moral values and 84 percent of those who support the war on terrorism believed the president and voted for him.

Mr. President, lead this nation in the path of righteousness and heaven will smile upon you.

Stand strong for the unborn and against those who would harvest human beings for their body parts in the name of science.

Stand in defense of marriage against those who would corrupt it with counterfeits. All 11 state marriage initiatives passed overwhelmingly and at least nine, and possibly 10, of those states voted for you.

Give us judges who will honor the rule of law by upholding the written Constitution in accordance with their oath. The court decisions striking down the ban on partial-birth abortion will wind their way to the Supreme Court. The appointments you make matter more now than ever.

Honor, support and equip the greatest and bravest military in the world, which stands in harm's way to keep us safe and secure.

Direct federal agencies to enforce our laws so that we and our children are spared the degradation of illegal pornography and indecency on our public airwaves.

Do all that you are able to make sure that our first liberty, freedom of religion, which sets us apart and above all other nations, remains secure.

These are the values of the heartland, the majority of Americans who took you at your word, and they are the values of God.

Voters rejected most of a dozen gambling-related issues on the ballot in several states, while Oklahoma approved creation of a state lottery, adding slot machines at horse tracks, and giving Indian tribes more options on gambling, according to the Associated Press.

In California, voters shot down a proposal allowing "card clubs" to add 30,000 slot machines, and also a measure giving Indian tribes broader gambling rights if they paid the state 8.8 percent of the revenue, according to AP.

In Washington state, voters defeated a measure to allow more non-Indian gambling.

Oregon voters rejected expanding an existing medical marijuana program, while Montana citizens voted to create such a program. Results were still pending for an Alaska measure to decriminalize marijuana production, use and sales.

Nebraska rejected legalizing two casinos, while results were pending on a measure to divert $2 million annually in lottery profits for state fairground improvements.

In Berkeley, California, voters overwhelmingly rejected Measure Q, which would have directed the police and prosecutors to ignore prostitution.

In Wyoming, results were not yet in on a measure to decriminalize prostitution, and in Ohio, the fate was unclear of a proposal to repeal Cincinnati's Issue 3, which bars the city from adding "sexual orientation" to civil rights laws.

As the dust settles, we are beginning to see how heavily concern about moral values influenced this election. After a campaign focusing on the threat of terrorism and the war in Iraq, this development will surprise those from the Left -- and Right --who dismissed moral issues and social conservatives as irrelevant. And, in fact, those who view the appeal to moral values as mere political manipulation and ideological posturing have a basic misunderstanding of people of faith and Main Street Americans.

The moral values that were a top priority in this election -- abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, same-sex unions, etc. -- are rooted in deep religious beliefs. In addition, at another level they are the values that form the basis of democracy -- moral boundaries and personal responsibility, respect for life and human dignity, freedom, etc. -- and are the essence of what it means to be American. President Bush embodies those values and, during his first term, put people and policies into place that supported them.

Further, there was no way that patriotic Americans would elect as president a person who betrayed his military buddies and trashed his nation's reputation. Nor would Americans choose as president a person who surrendered the nation's leadership in the world arena.

Bush's strong, resolute stance on terrorism as well as his unwavering position on pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family issues resonated with mainstream Americans. The Left has tried to portray these moral values as extremist; Americans have resoundingly said that these values are American.

Evangelicals voted in force in this year's election, securing the presidency for George W. Bush, granting parents in Florida the right to be notified before their minor daughter's abortion, and passing marriage protections laws in every state they were offered - even liberal Oregon.

Moral values topped the list of priorities for many voters, rising even above the war in Iraq and the economy, as the key motivating factor.

President Bush knows his strongest base, who they are and what drives them. Perhaps this is because, as many Evangelicals and conservative Catholics can relate, he is one of us.

Of the prominent battleground state of Ohio, which Sens. Kerry and Edwards refuse to accept as a loss, ABC News' Mark Halpern reported, "Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Bush in Ohio, 70 percent to 30 percent for Kerry." Not only in Ohio, he stated, but all across the country, did Bush win a large majority of evangelical support.

While "soccer moms" could never be verified as a significant, or lasting, voting block, there is no denying that Evangelicals and conservative Catholics make up a sizable portion of America, spanning the spectrum of other blocks such as African-Americans and Hispanics. This revelation could change the face of future campaigns.

Brian Williams of MSNBC News stated, "White evangelical voters kept their promise to get out the vote, representing one in five voters today." But this overlooks a fundamental reality - many African Americans are also Evangelical. In fact, black pastors stepped to the forefront to fiercely back marriage-protection initiatives.

And now Democrats are facing the harsh reality that dismissing, and even belittling, Evangelicals' deeply held beliefs may not be a smart tactic for winning national elections.

As the results came rolling in on election night, NBC's Tom Brokaw raised this with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Brokaw noted that every time he talks with Evangelicals they express the feeling that they're not taken seriously by the Democratic Party, that they're mocked, even belittled.

George Mitchell confessed, "That's true of some Democrats but not all." Implying that it merely has to do with packaging, he said, "The question is how to appeal to them that makes sense to the party and the country."

Looking at the huge swatch of red covering election maps of the country, Mitchell conceded that Democrats cannot win by "being a regional party." He acknowledged that that party is lacking any kind of national base. "You have to be a national party to compete in national elections," he noted.

Faith played an extraordinary role in this election, remarked Joe Scarborough, former congressman and political analyst for MSNBC. President Bush is a man of faith; Sen. Kerry just doesn't get it. "He thinks by saying he was an altar boy, he covered it," Joe said.

This reflects the current culture war. It is between those who believe in God and recognize that morality is crucial to a successful life and functioning society, and those who reject absolutes, whether in the form of virtue or a Supreme Being to Whom we must answer.

Now that both political parties recognize that Evangelicals and conservative Catholics are a formidable force that should not be ignored, we must be very careful. Shrewd politicians will look for ways to peel off our votes and to woo compromise on issues about which we have no right to bargain - such as the right for the most vulnerable to live.

A terrible warning comes in the win of California's Proposition 71, which approved $3 billion for unethical embryonic stem-cell research. This could not have passed without the support of many Evangelicals and Catholics. Not only is it a financial boondoggle that grants biotech insiders the right to secretly spend all that money without accountability, but the basis of the initiative is the constitutional right to create human embryos (even through cloning) to experiment upon and kill.

Clearly, there is work to be done within our house. First, we must ensure that Evangelicals remain faithful in our civic duty to vote for people who, as nearly as possible, reflect Biblical views. Second, we must teach our people how righteousness is worked out in public policy. Evangelicals and conservative Catholics distinguish ourselves from other special interest groups in that we do not seek our own advancement or political power; we want to see virtue respected so the people may rejoice. Our newly exercised muscle must be used wisely, only in God's service.

Printer Friendly Version

Recent Articles

Protect Marriage in Maine Briefing - January 14 & 15

Silent No More - Thursday, January 15, 2009

A Call To Action - Saturday, March 2, 2009

Movieguide®, A Family Guide To Movies, Recognizes CWA’s Efforts

Legislative Day - Tuesday, January 13, AD2009

New! SD Legislative Session Set To Begin

Day On The Hill - Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A Mouse and a Gentleman: The Tale of Despereaux

Concerned Women for America of Virginia Launches Encourage-A-Legislator Program

CWA President TV Highlights