Still the Biggest Missing Story in Politics
In August of last year I wrote an article, "The Biggest Missing Story in Politics," which reviewed the single most important datum in the last thirteen Battleground Polls over a period stretching from early 2002 to late 2008. The critical fact, completely ignored by almost everyone, was that in answering Question D3, which asked the respondent what he considered his ideology to be, sixty percent of the American people described themselves as "conservative" or "very conservative."
In every single Battleground Poll, conservatives vastly outnumbered not only liberals, but moderates and undecided respondents combined. The Battleground Poll itself is a bipartisan poll, combining the resources of the Tarrance Group and Lake Research Partners. Unlike many polls driven by newspapers, networks, or other agenda driven organizations, this poll is one of the few which has no ideological agenda or partisan bias.
The last Battleground Poll, which came out after my article, no longer revealed the answer to Question D3. Did that mean that America, suddenly, stopped being an overwhelmingly conservative nation and had been seduced by Obama into being moderate or Leftist? No. The Tarrance Group did reveal the ideological breakdown of Americans, although in a different way than in the thirteen prior Battleground Polls.
Those earlier polls had asked people to describe themselves as "very conservative," "somewhat conservative," "moderate," "don't know," "somewhat liberal," or "very liberal." Those who chose "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative" were as low in some of the thirteen polls as 58% of the nation and as high in other polls as 63% of the nation, and the average of the polls was a rock solid 60%, year in and year out.
Two questions replace the old Question D3. Now Americans were asked on social issues if they were "very conservative," "somewhat conservative," "moderate," "somewhat liberal" or "very liberal" as well as on fiscal issues if they were "very conservative," "somewhat conservative," "moderate," "somewhat liberal," or "very liberal." The Tarrance Group also provided data on the answers to this question within political parties.
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