AFTER two years of campaigning among the people, Democrat Barack Obama was elected president by just under 67 million votes to 58 million votes. Liberals are celebrating. Social conservatism is dead.

I say, long live social conservatism.

Obama did not campaign on a platform of gun control, gay marriage and breaking up families.

He spoke in favor of gun owners, in opposition to gay marriage, and for fathers to stop being missing in action.

Let us start with guns. Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, regularly receives an "F" from the National Rifle Association.

But on the campaign trail, Obama said: "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns."

He also said in June: "As president, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne."

West Virginians did not buy it, but the point is, Obama did not run as Mr. Gun Control. The center has shifted to the right on that issue.

Then there is gay marriage. True, he opposed Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

But his supporters backed it. Exit polls showed that 70 percent of black voters and nearly as high a percentage of Latinos supported Proposition 8, while a majority of white voters in California opposed it.

It passed.

Obama spoke of Proposition 8 on MTV just before the election: "I've stated my opposition to this. I think it is unnecessary.

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.

"But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them."

Then there is church. Obama made a big point about attending church regularly and even used the title of a sermon as the title for his memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."

AFTER two years of campaigning among the people, Democrat Barack Obama was elected president by just under 67 million votes to 58 million votes. Liberals are celebrating. Social conservatism is dead.

I say, long live social conservatism.

Obama did not campaign on a platform of gun control, gay marriage and breaking up families.

He spoke in favor of gun owners, in opposition to gay marriage, and for fathers to stop being missing in action.

Let us start with guns. Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, regularly receives an "F" from the National Rifle Association.

But on the campaign trail, Obama said: "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns."

He also said in June: "As president, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne."

West Virginians did not buy it, but the point is, Obama did not run as Mr. Gun Control. The center has shifted to the right on that issue.

Then there is gay marriage. True, he opposed Proposition 8 in California, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

But his supporters backed it. Exit polls showed that 70 percent of black voters and nearly as high a percentage of Latinos supported Proposition 8, while a majority of white voters in California opposed it.

It passed.

Obama spoke of Proposition 8 on MTV just before the election: "I've stated my opposition to this. I think it is unnecessary.

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.

"But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them."

Then there is church. Obama made a big point about attending church regularly and even used the title of a sermon as the title for his memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."

OK, his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, turned out to be an anti-American, race-baiting, hate-filled preacher, and Obama eventually had to quit the church, but the fact remains that religion was a part of his campaign.

The first general election debate even came at a church.

Obama also endeared himself to conservatives by embracing the concept of personal responsibility and stressing the importance of fathers.

"Too many fathers are M.I.A., too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it," Obama told the congregation of a black church one Sunday morning in Chicago during the campaign.

Dan Quayle was mocked mercilessly for suggesting the same thing in 1992.

"Ultimately however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this.

"It doesn't help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown - a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman - mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice," Quayle said.

As a person who shares with Obama the experience of abandonment by a father as an infant, I say Quayle nailed it 16 years ago.

Far from skating, inevitably, toward the world of liberalism, this nation has looked at its course and decided a little correction is in order. Freedom without responsibility is chaos.

Democrats have won the White House. It remains to be seen if as president, Obama's deeds will match his words.

However, Obama and his campaign realized that you cannot be elected president of the United States by being a social liberal.

As he prepares to lead the free world, Barack Obama might want to keep that in mind.

So might Republicans as they look to 2012.

Surber may be reached at donsur...@dailymail.com. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber.