A few conclusions after a weekend spent thinking and thinking and thinking about the election:

First, can we declare a moratorium on the terms "values voters" and "moral issues" right now? These are nothing more than Big, Fat Right-wing Euphemisms, and the media seems perfectly happy to deploy them uncritically. Such language falsely implies that Kerry supporters don't have values and don't care about morality, and that morality itself is pretty much limited to the circumstances under which people can bump nasties. As opposed to say, dooming thousands of people to premature death every month from air pollution, or screwing the poor.

What to call this particular set of the electorate, then? I'm still working on it, but so far I like the way my hubbo unit put it best: These are the people, by and large, who don't like The Simpsons.

I would add, as Bob Herbert says in his excellent column today, that the role of religion is being overplayed in post-election analysis. What's being underplayed, almost mysteriously so, is the role of misinformation -- most especially the tremendous reach of Fox News in creating a separate reality favorable to Bush. It's undeniable that television advertising works; now think about the effect of having a 24-hour ad campaign running since 1996. (If you haven't seen Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed yet, you should.)

Meanwhile, unbelievably, some Democrats have displayed a spectacular lack of a learning curve by insisting that the party hasn't been centrist enough. This, after the 2002 debacle which followed numerous concessions to Repubs; this, after Daschle and Kerry, both of whom voted for the authority to go to war in Iraq, both lost. If milquetoast Dems were mice in a Skinner Box, no amount of electric zapping would deter them from going after the cheese the same way. Note to wimpy Dems: No matter how you vote, your record will be distorted and your character demonized, so you may as well vote what you believe.