Originally Posted by wtrg8

I still want to know more about Huntsman.

I first heard of him in 1992 when he became Ambassador to Singapore at age 29. I still don't know much about him other than that he always seems to be in the right place at the right time.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

There has been a lot of discussion here about what happened in last fall's elections, and whether the result reflected voters staying home. Nate Silver's column today confirms that indeed those results did reflect voters staying home. But the voters who stayed home weren't mainly liberals. They were moderates. The percentage of self-identified moderates dropped among voters. Some moderates, indeed, became conservatives.

In Delaware the moderate Democrats seemed to come out in force, in part to defeat Christine O'Donnell. Even the more moderate Republicans further down on the ballot found themselves winning by much closer margins than expected - if they won.

Originally Posted by Earl and Mooch

In Delaware the moderate Democrats seemed to come out in force, in part to defeat Christine O'Donnell. Even the more moderate Republicans further down on the ballot found themselves winning by much closer margins than expected - if they won.

I'm pretty sure the same was true in Nevada. Harry Reid was a very vulnerable incumbent, with some good reasons, but when the Republicans threw out a nutcase like Sharron Angle, a lot of folks who would have swung for a saner Republican had to hold their nose and vote for Reid. The polls I saw showed that self-described moderates broke 2-to-1 for Reid, which is telling in an election that generally favored Republicans.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

I'm pretty sure the same was true in Nevada. Harry Reid was a very vulnerable incumbent, with some good reasons, but when the Republicans threw out a nutcase like Sharron Angle, a lot of folks who would have swung for a saner Republican had to hold their nose and vote for Reid. The polls I saw showed that self-described moderates broke 2-to-1 for Reid, which is telling in an election that generally favored Republicans.

In the MN Gubernatorial election the Republicans nominated a nutcase (Tom Emmer) and the the Indies (Ventura's party) nominated a Paleoconservative businessman (Tom Horner). Thus the Right was split and Dayton won despite the Republicans taking control of the state legislature. Usually the Indies take away more votes from the Dems, which is how Pawlenty got elected twice, so Minnesota is lucky.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Do you think he'll still be in the race by the time the Virginia primaries happen?

I will never under-estimate a Politician's ability to self-destruct when He/She is about to run/ hold office. Cain has failed in Business and Succeeded and cannot say much about the others, except for Romney.

The Biliberg Group/ Neo-Con's want Governor Perry so you know which Candidate I will not vote for.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

There has been a lot of discussion here about what happened in last fall's elections, and whether the result reflected voters staying home. Nate Silver's column today confirms that indeed those results did reflect voters staying home. But the voters who stayed home weren't mainly liberals. They were moderates. The percentage of self-identified moderates dropped among voters. Some moderates, indeed, became conservatives.

What happened, actually, according to a Pew poll Silver trusts, is that every group--liberal, moderate and conservative Democrats and Republicans--was less likely to vote in 2008 except conservative Republicans. They turned out in far greater numbers than anyone else. The enthusiasm gap, Silver says, was between them and everyone else.

And that's why, he points out, Republicans don't want to compromise on anything--they know they owe their seats to extreme conservatives. (Of course, Grover Norquist plays a role as well.)

The Democrats have failed to give anyone else any reason to be enthusiastic.

That's the same conclusion I drew in post 17 of this thread. Some people did switch parties, but by and large, left-wing disenchantment is the story of the 2010 election.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

That's the same conclusion I drew in post 17 of this thread. Some people did switch parties, but by and large, left-wing disenchantment is the story of the 2010 election.

True. Though I also think this makes it a lot easier for the "establishment" Democratic leaders to ignore the far left and instead play to the center-right folks who may accept the corporate status quo. These "disenchanted" lefties do themselves and their causes no favors by staying home. (Unless one is willing to accept right-wing hegemony for a while in hopes it will lead to a true leftist surge in future elections.)

Good points.
So, what if there were a county with what is generally considered an open electoral system that was currently headed by what is supposed to be a left of center government that had an election coming up soon. And what if the so called left-center government embraced austerity to the dismay of its supporters? How would such a government fare?

Well we may see this autumn.

Usual disclaimers apply.

Originally Posted by New York Times

Spain Socialist Candidate Plays to Left but Vows Austerity

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba courted disillusioned leftist voters on Saturday after the ruling Socialists anointed him candidate for prime minister in an uphill battle to retain power.

In a televised speech, Rubalcaba said bank profits should finance job creation and proposed reviving a tax on the wealthy, although he stressed he would maintain austerity measures to cut Spain's deficit.

Rubalcaba will have a tough time distancing himself from unpopular Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who cut spending and public wages over the past year and implemented labour market reforms to keep Spain from being sucked into the euro zone debt crisis.

The Socialists, in power eight years, trail the centre-right Popular Party by 14 percentage points in opinion polls as voters are unhappy with the European Union's highest unemployment rate and the government's failure to revive the economy.

***
Elections must be held by next March but Zapatero, who remains in office until the poll, is widely expected to call an early vote, in October or November, so that Rubalcaba can take advantage of a summer economic upturn.

***
Rubalcaba and other Socialist leaders began playing to leftist voters after their party was punished severely in May local elections because alienated leftist voters stayed away or turned to smaller parties.

"Alienated leftist voters stayed away from the polls." As noted above if you modify that statement slightly to include centrists you've got the same outcome seen in the US last November.

Save the big banks and everything will be fine.
I think I've heard this one before.
We will see how it plays out.
Both there and sadly, here.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Note that this agenda is purely economic; it is not "conservative" across the board. The wealthy individuals and corporations who are doing this don't care, as a class, about social issues at all. (Specific individuals may be exceptions, of course.) Thus, when politicians of either party take certain positions on issues such as abortion or gay rights or other social matters, they are pursuing votes from their constituents or even acting according to their own genuine convictions. But when they take the positions they do on economic matters -- taxes, workers' rights, trade -- they are acting under orders. They are not doing what they genuinely believe to be in the nation's interests; they are doing what they are paid to do.

I'm not sure this quite captures the full dynamic. What we seem to have is an elite consensus that is center-right (which is what the media refers to when they call America a "center-right" nation). For decades that elite consensus has been most resistant to democratic pressures in the realm of foreign policy, next most resistant in economic policy and most flexible in social policy. This resistance was (for decades) paralleled in the general public, in that aggressive foreign policy was most strongly associated with a pro-business economic agenda. This association was almost certainly due to the Cold War where foreign policy aggressiveness and anti-Communism became conflated with each other. Since the end of the Cold War, this association has steadily disintegrated, and the War on Terror has caused foreign policy aggressiveness to be associated with social conservatism (among the public).

In my view this has critically damaged the elite consensus in America. Elites who are sympathetic to social conservatism now see promotion of right wing social policy as a critical component of maintaining the long-standing elite consensus in foreign policy (and to a lesser extent, economics). The problem is that since our elites are also urban and cosmopolitan, many of them aren't social conservatives -- and so this attempted right-wing realignment is not in their interest. This means that contrary to your analysis above, social issues are now crucial. Those are the issues that divide the elite, and thus those are the issues that can trigger a shift in the elite consensus and break the deadlock on economics and foreign policy as well.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

There has been a lot of discussion here about what happened in last fall's elections, and whether the result reflected voters staying home. Nate Silver's column today confirms that indeed those results did reflect voters staying home. But the voters who stayed home weren't mainly liberals. They were moderates. The percentage of self-identified moderates dropped among voters. Some moderates, indeed, became conservatives.

That last sentence is disproven by the very article you are quoting. Nate is confirming what I've been saying: nobody (well, hardly anybody) "became" anything! People didn't change their minds. People didn't vote for Obama in 2008 and then vote Republican in 2010. People who voted for Obama in 2008 didn't vote at all in 2010, while others who didn't vote in 2008 voted Republican in 2010.

Regarding the first sentence, about those who stayed home being "moderates" rather than "liberals," two responses are appropriate.

1) It doesn't matter. The point of saying that the 2010 election was a result of changes in the pattern of voter turnout is to show that there is no conservative consensus, no change of the public's mind, no rejection of liberalism. That's equally true if those who stayed home were "moderates." The only thing that would refute it would be to show that the election was driven by people changing their minds and their votes, and that wasn't the case.

2) Identifying "liberals" versus "moderates" versus "conservatives" is tricky. The word "liberal" has been so successfully demonized that fewer people than ever are willing to label themselves with it. I believe the most recent poll on the question, which was a few years ago, showed that some 20% of Americans call themselves "liberal." Yet, if you take polls on issues, you find that the number of people supporting liberal positions runs from 40-60%, depending on the specific issue. A lot of these people who hold liberal views must, therefore, not call themselves "liberals." In fact, it seems to be the case that liberals outnumber self-identified liberals by roughly two to one. Presumably the 20% who actually call themselves liberals are among the 40-60% who hold liberal views, but it must also be the case that some 20-40% of the electorate hold liberal views without accepting the label. Accordingly, a lot of the people who self-identified as "moderates" in Silver's research must actually be liberals, no matter what they call themselves.

The Democrats have failed to give anyone else any reason to be enthusiastic.

Exactly. And that's why they lost last year. Not because they overreached to the left, but because they underreached and failed to deliver.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Do you really believe that this hasn't been going on long enough for "eventually" to have gotten here already?

I think it's just now reached the point where people are angry enough to do something about it.

This sounds like wishful thinking.

It's happened before in previous Fourth Turnings.

That's a good test, but your record (2010 election results) on testable predictions based on your thesis has not been encouraging.

I made no predictions of the 2010 election. I merely argued against premature certainty, saying that it was possible the enthusiasm gap might be overcome. In part, that was keeping my own morale up, since I was engaged in arguing, on left-wing blog sites, against trying to "send a message" by staying home. I always knew I might fail, but saw no sense in conceding ahead of time that failure was doomed.

This time I'm making a prediction, and it's fair to use it as a test.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

That's the same conclusion I drew in post 17 of this thread. Some people did switch parties, but by and large, left-wing disenchantment is the story of the 2010 election.

No, that's not what he said. It wasn't leftwing disenchantment. It was moderate disenchantment. Self-identified liberals voted in normal numbers.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

No, that's not what he said. It wasn't leftwing disenchantment. It was moderate disenchantment. Self-identified liberals voted in normal numbers.

Huh? Silver's data indicates that moderates and liberals propensity to vote were the same. You're not seriously contending that only 56% of very liberal people voted in 2008? I'd like to see proof of that.

Or, instead here's strong evidence that conservative voting propensity was unique in 2010. Take a look at page 28 of the full Pew Typology report. As you can see turnout went up in the three most Republican-leaning groups and down in the other five. Liberals did not vote by the same amount in 2010.

One of the problems the Democrats had in 2010 was getting the kind of voters groups like ACORN recruited in 2008 to come out and vote again - and this factor was huge in Scott Brown's Senate win in Massachusetts: Most of these type of voters were literally unaware that the special election was even taking place.

This is what happens when you try to rely on the underclass for such a large portion of your votes.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Huh? Silver's data indicates that moderates and liberals propensity to vote were the same. You're not seriously contending that only 56% of very liberal people voted in 2008? I'd like to see proof of that.

Or, instead here's strong evidence that conservative voting propensity was unique in 2010. Take a look at page 28 of the full Pew Typology report. As you can see turnout went up in the three most Republican-leaning groups and down in the other five. Liberals did not vote by the same amount in 2010.

From Silver's piece:

"This might seem counterintuitive. Didn’t the Republicans win a sweeping victory last year? They did, but it had mostly to do with changes in turnout. Whereas in 2008, conservatives made up 34 percent of those who cast ballots, that number shot up to 42 percent last year. Moderates, on the other hand, made up just 38 percent of those who voted in 2010, down from 44 percent in 2008 (the percentage of liberals was barely changed). The 2010 election was the first since exit polls began in 1976 in which a plurality of the voters said they were conservatives rather than moderates."

Liberals voted in the same numbers as in 2008. A combination of two things happened: moderates staying home, and moderates becoming conservatives--plus more conservatives turned out that in 2008. Moderates, not liberals, gave Obama his big victory in 2008 and moderate behavior (including non-voting) did the most to give the Republicans their victory last time. And the moderates will be key next time.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

From Silver's piece:

"This might seem counterintuitive. Didn’t the Republicans win a sweeping victory last year? They did, but it had mostly to do with changes in turnout. Whereas in 2008, conservatives made up 34 percent of those who cast ballots, that number shot up to 42 percent last year. Moderates, on the other hand, made up just 38 percent of those who voted in 2010, down from 44 percent in 2008 (the percentage of liberals was barely changed). The 2010 election was the first since exit polls began in 1976 in which a plurality of the voters said they were conservatives rather than moderates."

Liberals voted in the same numbers as in 2008. A combination of two things happened: moderates staying home, and moderates becoming conservatives--plus more conservatives turned out that in 2008. Moderates, not liberals, gave Obama his big victory in 2008 and moderate behavior (including non-voting) did the most to give the Republicans their victory last time. And the moderates will be key next time.

You seem to be reading a lot into that paragraph that isn't there. The percentages in that one sentence are the percentage of those who voted. He's saying that the share of those who voted who self-identified as liberal barely changed (it dropped by two points if you do the subtraction). That would be a 13.6% decrease in the share of moderates, a 9.1% decrease in the share of liberals and a 23.5% increase in the share of conservatives. Given the margins of error and the fickle nature of ideological self-identification not to mention the table of voting likelihood in the same article* the only reasonable conclusion is that conservatives voted more and everyone else voted less. Which, incidentally, is exactly how Silver phrases it:

Originally Posted by Nate Silver

So the enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative Republicans from everyone else.

* A table which clearly shows that likelihood of voting was high for conservative and very conservative Republican leaning voters and low for everyone else.

Actually, given that 2008 had nearly 60% voter turnout overall while 2010 dropped to 41%, it's not possible that liberals (or conservatives, for that matter) voted in the same numbers in both elections.

The distinction between liberals and moderates is unimportant for the reason I gave above: self-labeling questions are useless for making that distinction. What matters is that people who voted for Obama in 2008 didn't vote in 2010 (not what they label themselves), and also that people who would have voted for McCain in 2008 if they'd voted at all, did vote in 2010.

The swing voter is a myth. This creature does exist, but not in anything remotely like the numbers some people think. A person who calls himself a "moderate" is, as often as not, a liberal, judged by issue positions. A person who calls himself an "independent" is, far more often than not, a regular voter of one party or the other who, for whatever reason, isn't willing to call himself a member of it. What matters is not appealing to "moderates" or "independents," but appealing to the base -- while not going so far off the deep end that you start to lose part of the base. The Republicans seem to understand that, which is another way of saying what Silver said. Many Democrats, unfortunately, still seem fooled by the misleading labels, still seem to believe in the myth. That's especially true of President Obama, who appears to have taken completely the wrong lesson from what happened in last year's election.

There were no moderates who became conservative, David. And many of those moderates who stayed home weren't moderates.

EDIT: Explanatory quotes from Silver for those who need help understanding number-crunching.

Originally Posted by Nate Silver

Until fairly recently, about half of the people who voted Republican for Congress (not all of whom are registered Republicans) identified themselves as conservative, and the other half as moderate or, less commonly, liberal. But lately the ratio has been skewing: in last year’s elections, 67 percent of those who voted Republican said they were conservative, up from 58 percent two years earlier and 48 percent ten years ago. . . .

Republicans . . . lost moderate voters to Democrats by 13 percentage points (and liberals by 82 percentage points). Had the ideological composition of the electorate been the same in 2010 as in 2008 or 2006, the Republicans and Democrats would have split the popular vote for the House about evenly — but as it was, Republicans won the popular vote for the House by about 7 percentage points and gained 63 seats.

Many of the G.O.P. victories last year were extremely close. I calculate that, had the national popular vote been divided evenly, Democrats would have lost just 27 seats instead of 63. Put differently, the majority of Republican gains last year were probably due to changes in relative turnout rather than people changing their minds about which party’s approach they preferred. . . .

[The enthusiasm] gap is commonly understood as the average Republican having been more likely to cast a vote in 2010 than the average Democrat. That’s true as far as it goes. But on top of the gap between Democrats and Republicans, there was a another enthusiasm gap within the Republican party, cleaving conservatives, who were very likely to turn out, from moderate Republicans, who were no more likely to vote than Democrats were.

I also note that Silver's data show true independents (the real, rare swing voters) had the lowest voter turnout of any ideological/partisan group: a mere 28% likelihood of voting in 2010, compared to 51% for liberal Democrats/leaners and 79% for very conservative Republicans/leaners. The use of the terms "Democrats/leaners" and "Republicans/leaners" shows that Silver understands the nature of so-called "independent" voters, since he lumps those "independents" who consistently vote for one party or the other (i.e., "leaners") with the Democrats or Republicans (as appropriate) rather than with the true independents. This is something everyone else should also do.

Also for the number-crunching challenged, an explanation of the phrase "had the ideological composition of the electorate been the same." It may be tempting to assume here that if the ideological composition changed, i.e. if the electorate included more conservatives and fewer moderates, people who had once been moderates became conservative. However, "the electorate" does not consist of all citizens; it consists of all citizens who actually voted. Someone who stayed home is not part of "the electorate" here.

Say you have, in a small community, a total of 100 eligible voters. Let's say that of those 100, 35 call themselves "conservative," 45 call themselves "moderate," and 20 call themselves "liberal."

Election 1: 60 people vote, including 20 conservatives, 20 moderates, and all 20 of the liberals. In this election, 33% of the electorate falls in each group.

Election 2: 40 people vote, including 20 conservatives, 10 moderates, and 10 liberals. In this election, conservatives make up 50% of the electorate while they made up only 33% in the prior election. But the ideological composition of the community hasn't changed. This increase in the strength of conservatives in the electorate is purely due to who votes and who doesn't.

The fact that we are examining percentages of a moving target means that one must account for movement of that target in evaluating any changes.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There were no moderates who became conservative, David. And many of those moderates who stayed home weren't moderates.

You're slightly overstating the case here. There certainly were at least a few, just not very many.

A lot of confusion stems from the assumption that "moderate" and "independent" are roughly synonymous:

In the Pew Typology 14% of RV are Solid Liberals (most of how self-identify as liberal). Given that roughly 20% of RV self-identify as liberal, that means that other self-identified liberals are a minority presence even in the other three Democratic leaning groups. Among the GOP leaning groups, self-identified moderates are mostly found among their least reliable voting group. So "moderates" are found mostly in Democratic leaning parts of the electorate.

However, the "independent" groups (i.e. those with low party identification) are the two least reliable GOP groups and the least reliable Democratic group. So "independents" are found mostly in GOP leaning parts of the electorate. There is overlap between "moderate" and "independent" but they are not the same.

This confusion is important because parties that want to win elections need to motivate those parts of the electorate that lean their way but are less reliable. In other words, elections require an appeal to self-identified independents, not to self-identified moderates.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

You're slightly overstating the case here. There certainly were at least a few, just not very many.

Yeah, yeah. Nitpicker.

However, the "independent" groups (i.e. those with low party identification) are the two least reliable GOP groups and the least reliable Democratic group. So "independents" are found mostly in GOP leaning parts of the electorate. There is overlap between "moderate" and "independent" but they are not the same.

If you look at the exit polls from last year, you find that the Republicans won the "independent" vote but lost the "moderate" vote. That should be a clue in itself that the two groups are not identical.

This confusion is important because parties that want to win elections need to motivate those parts of the electorate that lean their way but are less reliable. In other words, elections require an appeal to self-identified independents, not to self-identified moderates.

More exactly, to that subset of self-identified independents who are inclined to vote for one's party. This requires taking the core base's demands and modifying them just slightly. It is possible to go too far in service to the core base, and the Republicans seem to be doing exactly that and suffering for it, but it's also quite possible not to pursue the base's demands at all in pursuit of mythical "moderate" voters, and so lose the votes of the base and of leaning independents.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

You seem to be reading a lot into that paragraph that isn't there. The percentages in that one sentence are the percentage of those who voted. He's saying that the share of those who voted who self-identified as liberal barely changed (it dropped by two points if you do the subtraction). That would be a 13.6% decrease in the share of moderates, a 9.1% decrease in the share of liberals and a 23.5% increase in the share of conservatives. Given the margins of error and the fickle nature of ideological self-identification not to mention the table of voting likelihood in the same article* the only reasonable conclusion is that conservatives voted more and everyone else voted less. Which, incidentally, is exactly how Silver phrases it:



* A table which clearly shows that likelihood of voting was high for conservative and very conservative Republican leaning voters and low for everyone else.

I do not understand where your numbers in that paragraph are coming from. I agree my italicized sentence was unfortunately ambiguous, though not wrong. The point is this: the percentage of liberals who stayed home in 2010 relative to 2008 was identical, nearly, to the percentage of voters who stayed home in 2010 relative to 2008. Liberals, in short, showed average enthusiasm, one might say. Conservatives showed above-average enthusiasm. Moderates showed way below average enthusiasm or became conservatives. That is a very dangerous trend.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

The point is this: the percentage of liberals who stayed home in 2010 relative to 2008 was identical, nearly, to the percentage of voters who stayed home in 2010 relative to 2008.

No, not possible. If that were true, the Democrats would have won the election. Look, what Silver's data show is that self-described liberal voters constituted an equal percentage of the electorate (almost -- slightly lower) in 2010 as they did in 2008, but the 2010 electorate, overall, was smaller -- therefore, so was the number of liberal voters.

Say you have a total population of 100 voters of whom 20 call themselves "liberal."

Election 1: 60% voter turnout, all 20 liberals vote. Liberals constitute 33% of the electorate.

Election 2: 30% voter turnout, 10 liberals vote. Liberals constitute, again, 33% of the electorate -- however, in election 1, the turnout among liberal voters is 100%, while in election 2 it's only 50%.

Just because liberals constitute the same percentage of the electorate between two elections means very little by itself. You also have to look at total turnout, and the turnout percentage for liberal voters themselves, before drawing any conclusions. Also, there's that problem of many self-identified moderates actually being liberals, as judged by their issue positions.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I do not understand where your numbers in that paragraph are coming from.

All you need to do is look at the numbers Silver provided and do subtraction to find the 2010 percentage of voters who were liberals. This leads to:

Liberal (20-22)/22 = -0.091 or a 9.1% drop
Moderate (38-44)/44 = -0.136 or a 13.6% drop
Conservative (42-34)/34 = 0.235 or a 23.5% rise

But, as I pointed out with my link to the Pew Typology, a better analysis takes into account the percentage of those who voted in each part of the electorate and the percentage of those groups voting for each party. I direct you again to page 28 of that report and my analysis in the thread about the Pew Typology. Here's what I wrote there:

Originally Posted by Me, Post 17, Pew Typology thread

If you take the eight groups and assume that the maximum number of vote switchers in each category (i.e. cases where a person voted both in 2008 and 2010, and where they voted for Obama in 2008 and the GOP in 2010) and do all the math, you will find that at most 4% of registered voters actually changed their minds in 2010.

On the other hand, if you assume the minimum number of Democrats staying home (i.e. take the drop in pro-Dem support minus the amount that could have gone GOP and if the pro-GOP percentage dropped for a group, assume these voters stayed home) and do the math, you will find that at least 6.7% of registered voters were Democratic leaning voters that stayed home.

And a more realistic assessment would be more like 7% vs. 3.5% or even more skewed. Thus, left-leaning voters staying home were twice as significant as 2008 Dem voters becoming 2010 GOP voters.

I don't have the time or patience to go dig up all the various polls to demonstrate the facts here, but Prof. Kaiser (despite the fact that he ignores me out of elitist snobbery) has once again displayed that he is one of the few leftists here who at least tangentially stays in touch with reality. The percentage of people in the general population (not just voters) calling themselves conservatives spiked up dramatically starting in 2009, from the mid-30s to the low 40s, primarily as a result of the health care bill.

It's really not complicated. Obama campaigned as a moderate, and has governed as a leftist. And his record has been a catastrophic failure. He lost left leaning moderates (whose most likely response was to stay home), and drove right leaning moderates screaming into the arms of the GOP.

That is the reality of what happened in 2010. I realize that certain posters here have no interest in reality, but the truth is out there to be found if you have any interest in it. I suggest starting with Gallup.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I don't have the time or patience to go dig up all the various polls to demonstrate the facts here, but Prof. Kaiser (despite the fact that he ignores me out of elitist snobbery) has once again displayed that he is one of the few leftists here who at least tangentially stays in touch with reality. The percentage of people in the general population (not just voters) calling themselves conservatives spiked up dramatically starting in 2009, from the mid-30s to the low 40s, primarily as a result of the health care bill.

It's really not complicated. Obama campaigned as a moderate, and has governed as a leftist. And his record has been a catastrophic failure. He lost left leaning moderates (whose most likely response was to stay home), and drove right leaning moderates screaming into the arms of the GOP.

That is the reality of what happened in 2010. I realize that certain posters here have no interest in reality, but the truth is out there to be found if you have any interest in it. I suggest starting with Gallup.

"The...truth...is...out there...."

Yes, Agent Mulder. I know.
Thank you, Doctor Scully.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"The...truth...is...out there...."

Yes, Agent Mulder. I know.
Thank you, Doctor Scully.

To JPT:

Thanks for the compliment.

Elitist snobbery is not the reason you are on my ignore list. Anyone who endlessly repeats right-wing propaganda goes there sooner or later.

I feel a touch guilty because if I did read your posts I might be able to pick something sensible out too.

There is no doubt that the bulk of the political energy out there right now is on your side of the fence.