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The November Battleground Poll and America
The Intellectual Conservative ^ | 04 January 2005 | Bruce Walker

Posted on 01/04/2005 7:49:53 PM PST by Lando Lincoln

The November 2004 Battleground Poll shows that sixty percent of Americans consider themselves either "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative," while only thirty-three percent consider themselves "very liberal" or "somewhat liberal."

I have written often about the one public opinion poll which has proven most reliable and which has provided a hidden, but vital, bit of information about America: the Battleground Poll. This poll is one of the few which are the collaboration of two partisan polling organizations, in this case a Republican polling organization, The Tarrance Group, and a Democrat polling organization, Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates.

This collaboration provides a double safeguard of reliability. Polling organizations, over the long run, want to be accurate -- this is true even if they have an agenda. Who believes polls which are wrong? But the short term interests of partisan clients tends to make even objective minds biased. Because the Battleground Poll is a long term process and because it has equal input from polling organizations with an avowedly partisan affiliation, the results tend to be very, very good.

How good? In 2004, it was very good indeed. The last Battleground Poll projected that President Bush would get 51.2% of the vote (he got 51.1% of the vote) and that Senator Kerry would get 47.8% of the vote (he got 47.9% of the vote.) The 2000 Battleground Poll projected that then-Governor Bush would get 49% of the vote and then-Vice President Gore would get 47% of the vote. That very close prediction was the worst of a very good run.

In 1996, the Battleground Poll projected that Bill Clinton would get 49% of the vote (he got 49.2% of the vote); that Bob Dole would get 40% of the vote (he got 40.7% of the vote); and that Ross Perot would get 9% of the vote (he got 8.4% of the vote.) In 1992, the Battleground Poll projected that Bill Clinton would get 43% of the vote (he got 43.0% of the vote -- right on the money); it projected that George H. Bush would get 37% of the vote (he got 37.4% of the vote); and it projected that Ross Perot would get 19% of the vote (he got 18.9% of the vote.)

Not only is the Battleground Poll the most accurate poll of the many spewed out almost daily during election season, but it does something very useful: it provides audiences with all the questions asked and all the answers. These internals have been the reason why I have written about the Battleground Poll so often over the last several years. The internals explain why Democrats ought to be profoundly worried about the position and the direction of their party.

Question D3 is the same question that appears in the internals of every Battleground Poll. The list is read and it is rotated to prevent bias. In August 2004, sixty percent of Americans considered themselves "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative" while only thirty-five percent considered themselves "very liberal" or "somewhat liberal." In September 2003, fifty-nine percent of Americans considered themselves "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative" while only thirty-five percent of Americans considered themselves "very liberal" or "somewhat liberal." The three prior Battleground Poll results showed a similar gap between conservatives and liberals.

What did the responses to Question D34 before the November 2004 election show? Sixty percent of Americans considered themselves either "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative" while only thirty-three percent of Americans considered themselves "very liberal" or "somewhat liberal." The gap persists over polls and over years, and more: the gap is actually widening.

What ought to concern Democrats is that the number of Americans who self-identify as "very conservative" has risen steadily from fifteen percent before the November 2002 election to seventeen percent in September 2003 to twenty percent before the November 2004 election, even as the number of conservatives has remained at fifty-nine or sixty percent of the population.

The number of people who consider themselves "very liberal," by contrast, is a meager eight percent. What does this mean? Not only has the gap between self-identified conservatives and liberals widened over the last several years, but the conservatives have become more conservative while the liberals have become less liberal.

And what does that mean? It means that the "middle" of American politics, which is actually somewhere in the realm of "moderate conservative," is moving farther to the Right, toward a more robust and unapologetic conservatism. It means that simply being a liberal is, more and more, synonymous with being an extremist. It means that conservatives and other normal people are no longer intimidated by the tight faced, menacing glares of the establishment Left, the shrinking Left, the vanishing Left.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: battleground; battlegroundpoll; gwb2004; polls

Lando

1 posted on 01/04/2005 7:49:54 PM PST by Lando Lincoln
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To: Lando Lincoln

Fascinating. While significant, though, I would argue that a lot of those "somewhat conservative" people have little understanding of what the term means in relation to politics. I still think our country is pretty much 50/50. Bush clearly won, but that could all change in 2004.


2 posted on 01/04/2005 7:52:33 PM PST by Zack Nguyen
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To: Lando Lincoln

"...conservatives and other normal people..."

I like the way this guy thinks.


3 posted on 01/04/2005 8:00:49 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Lando Lincoln
Who believes polls which are wrong?

Democrats. They believe what they want to believe.

4 posted on 01/04/2005 8:04:37 PM PST by TruthShallSetYouFree (Abortion is to family planning what bankruptcy is to financial planning.)
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To: Lando Lincoln
When was the last battleground poll released in 2000?

Had not the DUI come out at the last minute, and Florida called before the polls closed in all time zones, I wonder if that number might have been close to the alternative results.

It means that the "middle" of American politics, which is actually somewhere in the realm of "moderate conservative," is moving farther to the Right, toward a more robust and unapologetic conservatism. It means that simply being a liberal is, more and more, synonymous with being an extremist. It means that conservatives and other normal people are no longer intimidated by the tight faced, menacing glares of the establishment Left, the shrinking Left, the vanishing Left.

I was about to so, "so what", until the closing argument.

A number of liberals view themselves as conservatives. 60% are not conservatives in practice, at least within the voting booth. The point the author makes thankfully doesn't rely on the 60% percentile but rather the minorities in each grouping.

It is significant that the people identifying themselves as extremely conservative has grown. Libs & moderates are very unlikely to identify under this qualification. 20% can therefore be deemed credible. Clearly, the extreme Liberals are higher than described here but they won't admit to it. So as the base of the right grows more emboldened to admit to being very conservative, with liberals denying their designation, moderates are likely to trend more conservative following the lead of the grouping more comfortable in their own skin.

5 posted on 01/04/2005 8:44:56 PM PST by Soul Seeker
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To: Soul Seeker

Actually I would call much of the self-described US "moderates" centre-left - you see they identify 70% with the Democrats and 30% Republicans. A real moderate should be defined to anyone that self-describes him/herself as a "centrist".


6 posted on 01/04/2005 9:27:43 PM PST by NZerFromHK ("US libs...hypocritical, naive, pompous...if US falls it will be because of these" - Tao Kit (HK))
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