Snooze wrote:

Given that moral values was supposedly the most important value in the 2004
American election, .......

I don't think it was really moral values that were touted so much as
*core* values, quite a different set of beliefs. Moral values require a
good deal of thought and occasional revision as one becomes wiser. Core
values are just that, cast in stone, immune from reason. They were
popular in the middle ages and again today both here and in the middle east.

Ruth Kazez