The Pulse                                                                      

Why family values didn't sell By DESERRIE RUPTASH, KRISTAL BRAZAITIS and RICHARD SCHULDT

Republicans hoped to sell "family values" as a 1992 campaign theme that would resonate with voters, but voters weren't buying. The Republican family values strategy lost big. A September survey of the Illinois public demonstrates that voters defined family values in much broader terms than Republican strategists who sought to capitalize on the issue, and that Democrats probably gained more as a result of the GOP strategy.

The telephone poll by the Survey Research Office at Sangamon State University yields insights into why the family values issue never took hold with the electorate and suggests possibilities concerning how this issue could be used to woo voters in the future. The survey was conducted in September with 642 Illinois residents (522 of whom were likely voters) and has a margin of error of 5 percent.

One problem for campaign strategists who hoped Murphy Brown's out-of-wedlock baby would be a productive campaign issue was that the public has no single definition of family values, and the Republican notion — the 1950s image of dad as breadwinner, mom as homemaker — hit home with just a small fraction of the Illinois public (see figure 1). When asked, "What does 'family values' mean to you?," the most frequent answer, given by a third of those polled, was that of family unity, togetherness and interpersonal relations (closeness, giving, caring, trust and communication). Every demographic and political group offered this response most frequently. Concerns that focused on providing for the family's needs comprised the second most frequent definition, with respondents mentioning the importance of having a job, an adequate income, a decent standard of living and needs relating to shelter, education, health and child care. More people thought family values was a vague term used in a manipulative fashion and a private, not a political issue, than defined it as meaning the traditional nuclear family.

The importance of the issue to voters is related to September presidential vote intention. While Clinton was leading in every "importance" group (see figure 2), his lead over Bush was under 10 percentage points among those who saw the issue as important, nearly 30 points among those who saw the issue as somewhat important, and over 40 points among those who saw the issue as not important.

What, then, of the impact on the 1992 election? From the perspective of the Bush campaign, the best that can be said for its family values strategy is that the issue acted to keep Republicans in the fold, primarily by reinforcing a choice which was already made and, secondarily, by giving Republicans a reason to stay. At the same time, there were few converts to Bush from Democrats and independents because of this issue.

From the perspective of the Clinton campaign, the Republican emphasis on this issue certainly did not hurt; in fact, it no doubt helped. First, the narrow definition of family values offered by the most vocal segment of the Republican party coincided with a personal definition salient to only about one-tenth of the pub-

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lic, while one in six resented the use of this issue as manipulative. A plurality of respondents saw no difference between the parties on the issue and, of those who did, somewhat more chose the Democratic than the Republican party as closer to their own view of family values. More importantly, the Republican emphasis on the issue was simply irrelevant to most of the public in 1992. Its emphasis only contributed to the perception that the incumbent administration "just didn't get it." When voters were asked why they supported their presidential choice, only 2 percent spontaneously mentioned the family values issue. Indeed, evidence is abundant that most voters were focused on the performance of the economy and on the need for a change. What about the future of family values as an issue? Certainly, over one-half of the public says the issue is important (see figure 3), and this does not differ by party. Yet, there is an increasing diversity of family structure in the United States. Attempts to define family values in terms of the family structure common in the 1950s will coincide with the family structure and the views of only a minority of the public. If the issue is to be used effectively in the political realm, the definition needs to be construed broadly in terms of family structure and related to specific policies which resonate with the public's own ideas of family values. This focus would lessen the feeling that family values is being used in a manipulative fashion. The issue needs to be defined in terms of specific programs which address the family-related concerns of the public: programs that would facilitate family unity and relationships in such areas as shelter, income, health care and education. These were the most common themes people talked about when asked about family values, themes that deal with the realities that families face, not just a vague ideal of the nuclear family. *

Deserrie Ruptash is a contractual research associate for the Survey Research Office in the Institute for Public Affairs at Sangamon State University, Springfield, Kristal Brazaitis is a graduate assistant in the institute, and Richard Schuldt is director of the Survey Research Office.

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