I think the original post-election emphasis on values in this election was probably overblown, and now the blowback saying it wasn’t values is probably overblown. It seemed most of the Saturday New York Times was devoted to arguing that the values question in the exit polls was hopelessly flawed. But I noted that Bill McInturf–a GOP pollster, but by no means a shill for social conservatives–defended the question, and the idea that moral values were important in the election:

“But Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, called critiques ‘garbage.’

’The people who picked moral values as an issue know what that means,’ he said. ‘It’s a code word in surveys for a cluster of issues like gay marriage and abortion.’

Mr. McInturff said that if ‘moral values’ was really a ‘catchall’ with a confused meaning, then more Democrats would have picked it. Of the 22 percent who chose ‘moral values,’ 80 percent were Bush supporters, 20 percent were Kerry supporters. ‘It’s self-selected by people for whom these issues are very important for their votes,’ he said, adding that the margin by which Mr. Bush carried these voters arguably made the difference in the election.