http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11574-2004Jan12.htmlThe Democrats' Mutual Morality . . .
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004; Page A17
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Rep. Richard A. Gephardt is the bread-and-butter candidate who talks about lost jobs and trade. But in the middle of his stump speech at a packed rally in the public library here last Friday, a sermon broke out.
Health coverage, he said, is not about economics. "It's a moral issue," he insisted. "It is immoral for people not to be covered by health insurance." And he closed by riffing with a preacher's rhythm on the refrain "We're all tied together" to evangelize about mutual responsibilities and social obligations.
Gephardt is not alone in explicitly using the m-word. In union halls, veterans' posts and civic centers across Iowa, Democratic presidential candidates stumping for next week's caucuses have lost their allergy to invoking moral language to talk about public policy. Not long ago, a politician who used the word "moral" was about to talk about "permissiveness" and "cultural decline." But the new "moral majority" being forged on the campaign trail is built on a yearning for community and a promise of social justice.
<snip>It's still true that a candidate who announces support for abortion rights and gay rights will get cheers from Democratic crowds. But judging by what the candidates are saying and the response they're getting at one event after another, the red-blue divide that matters this year is a different one. It pits a stark individualism against community.
Gephardt is direct about this. "I think Bush believes we're all separated, isolated individuals," he says. In Gephardt's alternative world, Americans remember that when too many are jobless, merchants will have no one to sell to and that children who grow up in poverty are more likely to turn to crime. How can we ignore our obligation to help others when all of us -- at this point, Gephardt tells the story of his own rise from poverty -- received so much help along the way?
<snip>A century ago, progressive Christians developed what became known as "the Social Gospel" to address the inequities of an industrializing America. This year's primary campaign has called forth a new Social Gospel -- nonsectarian and less explicitly religious, but no less important.
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