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WASHINGTON - What motivated votes for President Bush and Sen. John Kerry? Everything from family values to an intense dislike of Bush to morals.
About 78 percent of self-described born-again Christians voted for Bush, himself a born-again Christian. A fifth of all voters said moral values were the most important issue in the campaign, and three out of four of those voters went for Bush.
"This country was based on biblical principles," said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, applauding what she called the "prolife, profamily" Election Day victories. "This is a sign of what America used to be, and that we're going back to where we were."
Kerry carried two states - Oregon and Michigan - that also passed gay marriage bans, and one observer saw a silver lining for Democrats in how "moral values" are defined.
"We have in Oregon a whole set of economic issues which many people understand to be values-based issues," said Sandra Morgen, director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
"It is a value to have a job that can support a family. It is a value not to have people starving. It is a value that we not have such a great degree of economic inequality."
Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, said that in the heartland, gun ownership among union members runs between 60 percent and 80 percent.
"I would really hope that national Democratic leaders stop taking this party off the cliff and look at the heartland and the wreckage this issue has caused, and start putting up candidates" who support gun rights, LaPierre said.
In Portland, Ore., a city so staunchly liberal that it is sometimes called the "People's Republic of Portland," the outcome of the presidential race was absorbed with the levity of a mass funeral.
Tchula Z, 33, an artist and part-time barista at her sister's coffee shop, who uses only Z as a last name, said she woke up Wednesday, learned that Bush had won and "smoked a cigarette and freaked out."
She added, "You know, as Janis Joplin said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.' I think people should start using that line again."
Down the coast in Santa Monica, Calif., the mood was no better. Jerry Peace Activist Rubin, his legal name, sat in his stockings in his dark apartment, taking condolence calls from well-wishers and rank-and-file left-wingers.
"Maybe I'm on the wrong side of the culture war," Rubin said.
Meanwhile, Scott Edwards, a voter in the central Iowa town of Huxley, said he voted for the president out of what he called a "gut instinct."
"It's more of a trust issue," Edwards said. "I trust President Bush. With Kerry, I just didn't have a good feeling."