Winning The Morality Race?

On a topic on which George W. Bush has been angling to corner the market, a new poll finds Al Gore and Joe Lieberman hold a slim lead when it comes to morals.

Most Americans surveyed in a poll released Saturday believe the Democratic presidential ticket has the edge in moral leadership. That's seen as an indication that the Democratic ticket's vice presidential candidate is helping to counter the perception of Democratic vulnerability on the issues of character and values.

Craig Crawford, Editor-in-chief of the online political journal The Hotline, tells CBS News that "the Democratic ticket, surprisingly, has stolen what has always been a major Republican issue, which is moral values."

The survey in the Washington Post found that most Americans are dissatisfied with the nation's moral standing, and Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney, garnered strong support from people who care most about that issue.

But, according to Crawford, that group is not large. "Among voters who say they will vote on moral values, the so-called 'values voters,' George W. Bush has a sizable lead, but that's only a minority of voters."

For the much larger number of voters who have other priorities, Gore and Lieberman came out ahead on the question of which ticket would provide better moral leadership.

Survey respondents preferred Bush by just 43 percent to 42 percent when compared alone with Gore on morals. But the Democratic ticket pulled ahead, 49 percent to 39 percent, when vice presidential candidates were considered. The rest of the sample said "neither ticket" or "both" would do a good job, or had no opinion.

The findings, according to the Post, apparently show that Lieberman, long respected for his character, values and religious devotion, has interfered with Bush's strategy to cast Gore as mistrustful and capitalize on President Clinton's controversies over character by promising to return dignity to the Oval Office.

Crawford tells CBS News that the Bush campaign has focused on President Clinton's perceived moral lapses. But "with picking Lieberman and establishing a distance from President Clinton, Gore appears to have made that strategy unworkable."

Lieberman, the first Jewish person ever to be on a major U.S. presidential ticket, strengthens Gore's moral leadership quotient in nearly every demographic group, the Post reported.

Survey respondents who rate morals as a top priority listed presidential behavior, abortion, the breakup of the family, and depravity of the media as the country's top moral challenges. This group represents about one in six likely voters.

But in the overall sample of voters, some of the most important moral challenges included finding ways to provide universal health care coverage and protect the environment.

The survey of 1,477 registered voters was conducted nationwide between Sept. 7-17 and included an oversample of 455 registered votes who said moral issues were among their highest priorities. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The poll was conducted by The Washington Post, Harvard University and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.