Single Issue Voters

Beginning after WWII, many Americans became single issue voters--their preference determined on a single position. In the '50s and '60s, the most common reason was anti-communism. Starting in the mid '70s, many chose on the basis of the candidate views on abortion. I never liked single issue voting. Why should disagreement on one policy necessarily trump others?

That was then, this is now. Communism is dead (or dying--see Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam) and the Supreme Court's 1992 Casey decision--acknowledging its reasoning in Roe v. Wade was wrong, but declining to overturn the case--made abortion permanent. But a new issue has emerged--and it's as important as its predecessors, as David Reinhard explains in Thursday's Oregonian:

I realized this week that I've become the same kind of single-issue voter, too, and it makes John Kerry's candidacy so deeply troubling. Yes, I know, the Massachusetts Democrat was a genuine war hero in Vietnam. But military biography doesn't equal national-security credibility. And Kerry's own words suggest he fails to appreciate the true challenge of the war on terrorism.

Never mind his flip-flops on Iraq or votes against weapons systems used there and in Afghanistan. Here's what he told NBC's Tim Russert last June: "[W]hat I think all of us need to focus on is the fact that the rhetoric of this war is overblown in some ways and not focused properly in others. This is not a war as we have known it. This is not a war in which there's a front line or the troops are going out every day . . . This is fundamentally an intelligence operation and the law enforcement operation and a diplomatic operation."

It's the last sentence of Kerry's formulation that's both wrong and dangerous. If this is his antiterror policy -- basically a police model -- then we will return to the failed approach of the eight Clinton years and the first eight months of the Bush administration. After 9/11, Bush, at least, realized a more proactive and robust policy was needed to stop the slaughter of innocents here and elsewhere. Kerry would take us back to the future.

I lost three friends on September 11th. I claim no special kinship or victimhood nor--unlike Reinhard's friend--any familial relation. My loss were only 1/100th of America's.

But I cannot--I will not--forget the 3000 Americans murdered that day. Neither Karen, Linda nor Barbara were soldiers. Nor religious fanatics. They were ordinary Americans traveling on business. None of them, and none of us, did anything to "deserve" it.

So that's my single issue:

[I]t's the war. That's what counts. If I had a choice between an isolationist Republican who would withdraw all American troops from everywhere and cast Israel adrift, OR a Joe Lieberman Democrat who understood the threat and wanted to take the fight to them - and nevermind what our valiant allies thought, like Russia - I'd pull the lever for the D. As I've said before: we can argue about the future of Western Civilization after we've ensured Western Civilization will survive.

This November, vote for Western Civilization. And be sure to clear out the chad.