Election opens new fronts in "culture war"

By Ed Stoddard - Analysis

DALLAS (Reuters) - The presidential campaign "culture war" has taken a new turn this year, but with just two days to go before the election, the souring economy has voters thinking with their pocketbooks rather than their passions.

Republican John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have tried to cast the election battle into a fight between big city elites and residents of small towns some Republicans have dubbed "real America."

With stock markets plunging and millions of Americans facing the loss of homes or jobs, issues like gay marriage and abortion rights -- which Republicans have used to galvanize their conservative Christian base in the past -- are no longer voters' top concerns.

Analysts say the culture war has been playing out differently against the backdrop of the economic crisis -- seen as the main reason for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's lead in the polls -- with a focus on broader values and character.

"The front line of the culture war battles has shifted from policy to broader world views, it has shifted to a coastal elitism versus America's heartland," said Rice University political sociologist Michael Lindsay.

Palin, a former mayor of a small Alaska town, has become a leader in the Republican battle against "liberal elites" like Obama, who famously stoked anger in April when he suggested that "bitter" small town voters were clinging to guns and religion because of economic hardship.

"Palin has become emblematic of this battle," said Lindsay, noting that many heartland voters take media criticism and TV parodies of her as "personal affronts to them."

For some on both sides of the political divide, the conflict has drawn deep lines between "us" and "them."

"The new front, to the extent that there is one, is a rural/urban conflict of values with Palin talking about the real America, the patriotic America," said Cal Jillson of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

These battle lines also reflect a conservative backlash against a permissive culture widely held to have taken root in the 1960s.

'FIGHTING 1968'

"There has been a widespread effort to associate Obama with 60s radicalism. It's culture war in different ways. It is a confirmation that we have been fighting 1968 ever since 1968," said David Gushee, a professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and a leading moderate evangelical activist.

For example, McCain's campaign has worked to link Obama with 1960s radical William Ayers, now an education professor in Chicago who has served on a board with Obama, and brand the Democrat a socialist.

Ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage in California and Florida and one to effectively outlaw abortion in South Dakota have stirred both parties, but have not obtained the national prominence of similar initiatives in 2004.

But on conservative Christian radio, abortion and same-sex unions remain constant topics of conversation and news reports -- as well as broader questioning of Obama's character.