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What is surprising is that elections ARE so close.

One of my favorite authors Arnold Kling of TCSDaily had an essay recently called Are You a Conservative? (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1649142/posts) where he argues that many liberals do live their lives by what now is considered to be conservative standards, they just vote Democrat because of a habit, or idealistic utopian ideals of how they imagine things should have been.

"liberals do live their lives by what now is considered to be conservative standards, they just vote Democrat because of a habit, or idealistic utopian ideals of how they imagine things should have been."

Yes, I believe you are exactly right. I know a lot of guys, middle aged guys at that, who are just ordinary guys, good guys, but still vote Dem regularly. They don't even necessarily consider themselves "liberals," though they might accept that label at a pinch, without any real idea of what it means. Mainly they vote Dem because they always have, or their parents did, no better reason than that, exactly the same as rooting for the hometown team. 'Course, their state of mind on this is reinforced every evening by the MSM, most of 'em sit in front of the TV without a very critical eye, though they are intelligent otherwise.

The point I make to myself, and occasionally on a thread, or to others, is that I believe it's important to understand one's own guiding principles regarding the role of government in society and the freedom of men. People who are like the ones we're discussing, and many who actively consider themselves "liberals" haven't really given much thought to what their principles on these matters should be, and thus are free to vote on individual issues and emotion without any regard at all to the "big picture." 'Course, the trouble is, a lot of our guys are much the same.

But given the above, I suppose it makes enough sense that voters will swing one way, then another, sometimes having eyes only for whatever bright and shiny bric a brac is being waved in front of them.

It's all well and good to be in favor of helping the poor or sticking up for the little guy, but most don't think about the longer term consequences of giving tremendous coercive power to government, or building massive bureaucracies which wield the power of law, in the service of those things. Unlike our founding fathers, they trust their government, at least if it's being run by their party.