Here is the American Thinker Column:
In August 2008, Americans answered that question this way: (1) 20% of Americans considered themselves to be very conservative; (2) 40% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat conservative; (3) 2% of Americans considered themselves to be moderate; (4) 27% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat liberal; (5) 9% of Americans considered themselves to be very liberal; and (6) 3% of Americans did not know or refused to answer.
Sixty percent of Americans considered themselves conservative. Does this mean that most Americans do not know what “conservative” means? No: The question specifically provides an out to people who are not sure about their ideology; it provides an out to people who want to be considered “moderate.” Americans reject those choices. They overwhelmingly define themselves as “conservative.” This is a huge political story - except that it is not “new” at all. Look at the thirteen Battleground Poll results over the last six years, and how do Americans answer that very question? Here are the percentages of Americans in those polls who call themselves “conservative” since June 2002: 59% (June 2002 poll), 59% (September 2003 poll), 61% (April 2004 poll), 59% (June 2004 poll), 60% (September 2004 poll), 61% (October 2005 poll), 59% (March 2006), 61% (October 2006), 59% (January 2007), 63% (July 2007), 58% (December 2007), 63% (May 2008), and now 60% (August 2008.)
The percentage of Americans who define themselves as “somewhat liberal” or “very liberal” has always been puny. In thirteen straight polls, this percentage has never been higher than 38% (June 2004) and it has usually been much lower. The gap between self-defined conservatives and self-defined liberals has been as high as thirty percentage points and as low as twenty-one percentage points. What does that translate into in electoral politics? If conservative presidential candidates simply got all the conservative votes - if virtually all moderate voters, uncommitted voters, and liberal voters went for the liberal candidate - then the conservative candidates would win a landslide bigger than Ronald Reagan in 1988. Have you ever wondered why liberals like Obama never call themselves liberals? Maybe their advisers have read the Battleground Poll internals.
Are these remarkable results skewed? This has always been the argument, but it is a hopelessly flawed argument. The poll results are incredibly consistent over time. These results are the same when President Bush has poll numbers at rock bottom and when Republicans were facing electoral disaster, like in October 2006 when 61% of Americans called themselves conservatives. The very consistency of these percentages is powerful evidence of their inherent validity.
If people did not know what conservative, liberal, and moderate meant, then the poll results to that question would bounce around over time and people would flock to define themselves as “moderate” or they would say “don’t know.” When given four different options to the conservative label, respondents overwhelmingly chose to define themselves, instead, as conservatives.
Do people feel pressured into calling themselves conservatives? Think: Hollywood regularly excoriates the image of conservatives; the mainstream media demonizes conservatives; schools teach that conservatives are narrow minded bigots; academia tries to hound independent conservative newspapers and organizations off campus. It requires much more courage to define yourself as a conservative than any other label, particularly when the banal “moderate” answer is so easily grasped. No: These answers to Question D3 are real, profound, and great.
more at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/the_biggest_missing_story_in_p.html
Thank you.
Those are two AWESOME posts.
I think Palin may well get those stragglers that form our 60% to the polls.