U.S. Prestige, Morals Issues in South : Non-Economic Concerns May Shape Early Campaigning

Voters in the South, the region many analysts believe holds the balance of power in the 1988 presidential elections, now seem more concerned about declining U.S. prestige in the world and eroding moral standards than the economic issues at the heart of most presidential campaigns, according to a sampling of voter attitudes released here Wednesday.

“We’ve become pussycats” in the eyes of the rest of the world, grumbled an Atlanta plant manager, a Democrat, one of 77 voters who participated last month in two-hour give-and-take “focus group” sessions in four Southern cities. And in Greensboro, N.C., one woman Republican declared: “In general, the American people’s morals have gone to the dogs.”

Focus groups, because of their free-wheeling format, are commonly used to help explain the voter attitudes disclosed by larger and more precise polling samples. Researchers at the Roosevelt Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank that conducted the Southern focus group sessions, say the results help illuminate the issues shaping the early intra-party campaign debate in the Super Tuesday Southern primaries next March.

Satisfied With Economy

Those interviewed were divided into groups of 10 or 12 according to their voting choice in the 1984 presidential election: Republicans, Democrats and swing Democrats--voters who consider themselves Democrats but voted for President Reagan. According to the report on the results prepared by Mark J. Rovner and William A. Galston of the Roosevelt Center, all but “hard-core” Democrats seemed relatively satisfied with current economic conditions.

“This country is running wide open now,” said a retired telephone worker and 1984 Republican voter in Greensboro. “Everywhere you look, people are building, people are making money.”

As a result of the limited distress about unemployment, inflation and the like, the Roosevelt researchers wrote, “non-economic issues may well be of greater salience in 1988.”

This assessment jibes with findings of other opinion studies, said Marty Connors, secretary of the Southern Republican Exchange, an organization headed by the five sitting GOP Southern governors, which has been surveying Southern elected officials to spotlight issues of regional concern in advance of the March 8 Super Tuesday primary. On that date, about 30% of the total convention delegates in both parties will be chosen.

Public Concern Shifts

Connors, recalling that Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 were based largely on economic issues, said: “There is no question that public concern has shifted from hard, hard economic issues to broader social concerns about such things as education, drugs and AIDS.”

The Roosevelt Center study also turned up considerable evidence of unease about international affairs, a concern that cut across partisan lines. “I wonder what comes to the minds of a lot of foreigners who look at the United States, the Mideast, the contra deal,” said a Houston man, a Republican. “I wonder if we have credibility at all.”

And in Birmingham, Ala., a woman who described herself as a Democrat but voted for Reagan in 1984 said: “I’m concerned that we are spread too thin throughout the world as a peacemaker. We seem to try to be, but we may be reaching the point now where we may not be able to handle it.”

Equally pervasive was the distress about personal values and standards of behavior for individuals and society. Some voters, among them some Republicans, seemed to agree with critics who have charged that the Reagan presidency has heightened tendencies to selfishness and acquisitiveness in the national character.

“I’m worried about the moral fiber of everything going on when I watch the ‘me first,’ ‘everything’s for me’ (attitudes),” complained an Atlanta woman, a self-described Republican and a Reagan voter. “And we don’t seem to be as cohesive as a people. We’re all worried about ourselves and not the person next door.”

Another Republican woman and Reagan voter, this one from Atlanta, saw a link between contemporary values and America’s difficulty in competing against other nations for world markets. “It seems like you hear more and more about Japanese workers and other countries being able to produce better products. And there doesn’t seem to be any more pride in workmanship. It’s a lot of wanting to take instead of give.”

Many saw economic and social change as the cause of changing standards. “The youth of today is not getting the guidance that they once did,” said a Birmingham man who voted for Reagan, though he considers himself a Democrat. “The kids nowadays, you got two parents that are both having to work to make ends meet if they have anything at all. And that leaves the kids out by themselves, no guidance, no nothing.”

As for specific candidates in 1988, the Roosevelt Center report on the focus group study concluded that most of those interviewed had too little information about any of the candidates to have made a clear choice as yet.