'Moral Values' Carried Bush, Rove Says

Note: "Moral Values" means different things to different people. The press seems to be ignoring that and continues to perpetrate the Republican point of view on the meaning of this term.


The New York Times
November 10, 2004

'Moral Values' Carried Bush, Rove Says
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 - President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, said Tuesday that opposition to gay marriage was one of the most powerful forces in American politics today and that politicians ignored it at their peril.

"This is an issue on which there is a broad consensus," Mr. Rove said, discussing a presidential election that took place as voters in 11 states backed constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriages.

"In all 11 states, it won by considerable margins," Mr. Rove said, adding, "People do not like the idea or the concept of marriage as being a union between a man and a woman being uprooted and overturned by a few activist judges or a couple of activist local officials."

He said he was not certain that the votes necessarily helped Mr. Bush to defeat Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. He noted that Mr. Kerry had won Michigan and Oregon, where the amendments passed by large margins.

"I do think it was part and parcel of a broader fabric where this year moral values ranked higher than they traditionally do," he said, adding: "I think people would be well advised to pay attention to what the American people are saying."

Mr. Rove suggested that the Republican Party's success was even broader than some Democrats had acknowledged, citing increased Republican vote totals in states like Hawaii and Connecticut.

"You're starting to see some growth of the Republican Party in places where you might not think there was a chance for growth," he said.

Mr. Rove appeared to stifle a grin when asked whether he was "indebted" to Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, who opened his City Hall to gay marriages until he was blocked by a court, and to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, for ruling that gay couples have a right to marriage.

"If you look at things that intrude into American politics through a nontraditional method - through a judicial vein - they tend to have a huge impact," he said.

On Capitol Hill, Mr. Kerry met with Democratic leaders - Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the incoming Senate minority leader - as he prepared to return to the Senate.