Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Candidates reflect nation's values rift Date: Fri, 30 Oct 92 15:33:28 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION;DECISION '92: VALUES \HD Candidates reflect nation's values rift \SH Clinton win seen blurring differences \BY Carol Innerst \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES The principal contenders for the Oval Office mirror the conflict over values that divides Americans. Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council and a partisan conservative, says the big distinction between President Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton is in their "standards of right and wrong." "There is a significant difference between the two, and if Clinton wins it will be because he has successfully made that difference muddled to most Americans," Mr. Bauer. But Marie Hayward, a San Francisco consultant at the other pole politically from Mr. Bauer, said, "What I want to know is do they share the same basis of decision-making as I do. Can I see them as my surrogate?" "Values are a bogus, ultraconservative issue that's been interjected in the campaign," she said. As an example, she added that she wouldn't be interested in a candidate of Mr. Clinton's age who hadn't questioned American involvement in Vietnam. Although their differences in values are often blurred or imprecise, Mr. Bush, 68, and Mr. Clinton, 46, give some political expression to the divisions over values and cultures that animate American life. On Tuesday, the nation will vote in part on this dialogue that involves a vision of personal repsonsibility, individualism and questions of human betterment and its relationship to government. James Davison Hunter, sociology professor at the University of Virginia, said, "The election is about image and he [Mr. Clinton] is able to confuse the image, which is the reason we're likely to have the first Democratic president in over a decade." Mr. Hunter, who is the author of the recently published "Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America," added, "The economy has been the issue in the headlines, but the subterranean issue has been the issue of the culture war. "Much more significant than the generation gap by itself is the education gap," he said. "The division on many of these values issues is along educational lines, with the college educated and postgraduates more progressivist about these kinds of issues. "The fact that Clinton went to college and grad school in the '60s and '70s helped crystalize a certain kind of world view that was distinct because elite education is the primary institutional carrier of values in the culture war," Mr. Hunter said. Both Mr. Clinton and his running mate, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, have been playing up their Southern Baptist heritage and doing things to attract evangelicals, he said. "What will happen after he's elected when he follows through on his promise to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, and gay rights legislation?" Mr. Hunter asked. "When you come back to the issue of policy beyond the election strategy, cultural divisions will flare up and gays and evangelicals and conservative Catholics will engage in a larger backlash." In many respects Mr. Bush personifies values that guided generations of Americans: immutable ideals relating to God, country and family. Mr. Clinton also reflects some of the attitudes associated with the youth rebellion of the '60s with its distrust of traditional attitudes toward religion, patriotism and sexual behavior. These developments were also marked by the emergence of a large number of women in the workplace and an increase of such problems as violence, drug abuse, illegitimate births and the spread of AIDS. Sex education is one issue in which these differences are particularly evident. The president, who is opposed to abortion, has pushed sex education programs that encourage abstinence. Mr. Clinton, who is pro-choice, approves of the distribution of condoms to high school students, and his wife Hillary's views suggest the permissibility of abortion for adolescents without parental notification. Some of these cultural differences are evident in the careers of the two men. The president was reared in the Episcopal Church. When World War II broke out, he became a Navy combat pilot at the age of 18. He returned to marry his high school sweetheart and rear a family. Imbued with noblesse oblige, he devoted the greater part of his life to public service. His father, Prescott Bush, had been a U.S. senator. Mr. Clinton, the first "baby boomer" to win a party nomination, was shaped at a different time and in a different culture. Faced with the prospect of being shipped to Vietnam, Mr. Clinton - like many college students at the time - was able to evade the draft and went on to organize protests to the war as a student in England. Caught up in the culture of his period, Mr. Clinton admitted that he tried marijuana (but said he didn't inhale). He attends a Baptist church in Little Rock, but his critics note that he discovered religion only after losing a state election to a candidate who garnered the religious vote. In rare remarks about religion, Mr. Clinton told an audience at the University of Notre Dame: "As do most Americans, I go to church on Sunday. . . . My faith is a source of pride. But more important, it is a source of humility because it teaches that none of us is a stranger to sin." Mr. Clinton, who was accused of having a 12-year-affair with cabaret singer Gennifer Flowers, says family values are "important" but what's more important is "What are we going to do about it?" "One of the values my family pounded into me was that if I worked hard and played by the rules, I'd be rewarded," he said in a speech in Cleveland. "We were taught to take responsibility for ourselves and each other and that if we did, we would do better," he said, promising that his policies as president would address family issues and offer "more opportunity to families in return for more personal responsibility." In response to criticism that he and Mrs. Clinton are not good family people, Mr. Clinton asked why else they would have spent much of their adult lives promoting health, education and job programs. "That's today's family values," Mr. Clinton said. Mrs. Clinton is a lawyer. The couple has one daughter. Tying the country's social ills to ailing families, Mr. Bush used the speech at Notre Dame to declare: "Whatever form our most pressing problems might take, ultimately, all are related to the disintegration of the family." "What you teach at your house is more important than what happens at the White House," he said, noting that families instill the moral values, self-discipline and sense of responsibility that strengthen society. Mr. Clinton's policies hold broad appeal for homosexuals and the homosexual-rights lobby. He favors dropping the military ban on homosexuals and would seek to give them the same legally protected status that racial minorities have. Ross Perot has argued that most election issues are more important than values. Like Mr. Bush, he is a member of the traditional-values generation. In his book, "United We Stand: How We Can Take Back Our Country," the 62-year-old Presbyterian calls the family the "fundamental unit of society." But he acknowledges that women and families have different needs than they did 20 or 30 years ago. His keys to preserving the family unit include job security, changing the welfare structure to encourage families to stay together, and passing legislation to enforce "deadbeat" parents to support their children. Mr. Perot is pro-choice but would encourage adoption as an alternative to abortion. "It is irresponsible for two people to create a human life they don't want," he says. Mr. Perot is an "old-fashioned technocrat" who's arguing that values don't matter to people except in the private realm, that somehow public policy is not a reflection of people's deepest concerns, Mr. Hunter said. "Lots of people out there will simply find his haircut appealing, for all that it implies about tradition and old-fashioned values," he said. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. 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