"Why Most Conservatives Are Secretly Liberals" (And how Bernie can revitalize the Democratic Party.)
Several DUers have characterized Bernie's support from self-identified conservatives as something scary and a as a bad thing.
On the contrary, when many self-identified conservatives are queried on policy (rather than label) a surprising number of them actually agree with traditional liberal ideology.
Perhaps Bernie's Conservatives will be the national antidote to Reagan's Democrats.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/06/why-most-conservatives-are-secretly-liberals/
But when it comes to saying what the government should actually do, the public appears more liberal than conservative. Ellis and Stimson gathered 7,000 survey questions dating back to 1956 that asked some variant of whether the government should do more, less, or the same in lots of different policy areas. On average, liberal responses were more common than conservative responses. This has been true in nearly every year since 1956, even as the relative liberalism of the public has trended up and down. For decades now there has been a consistent discrepancy between what Ellis and Stimson call symbolic ideology (how we label ourselves) and operational ideology (what we really think about the size of government).
Looked at this way, almost 30 percent of Americans are “consistent liberals” — people who call themselves liberals and have liberal politics. Only 15 percent are “consistent conservatives” — people who call themselves conservative and have conservative politics. Nearly 30 percent are people who identify as conservative but actually express liberal views. The United States appears to be a center-right nation in name only.
…..
But other self-identified conservatives, though, are conservative in terms of neither religion and culture nor the size of government. These are the truly “conflicted conservatives,” say Ellis and Stimson, who locate their origins in a different factor: how conservatives and liberals have traditionally talked about politics. Conservatives, they argue, talk about politics in terms of symbols and the general value of “conservatism” — and news coverage, they find, usually frames the label “conservative” in positive terms. Liberals talk about policy in terms of the goals it will serve — a cleaner environment, a stronger safety net, and so on — which are also good things for many people. As a result, some people internalize both messages and end up calling themselves conservative but having liberal views on policy.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Suddenly there's no room for a tried and true FDR-like candidate, nor
is there room for pissed-off conservatives who don't want to loose their
Social Security & Medicare. 
but the problem with the Big Tent, it swooped up traditional (D)s that espoused conservative ideology and ignored self-identified conservatives that actually align with traditional thought.
I.E., we have written off the South and Southwest for many decades. Huge (or as Bernie would say, "Yooge"
mistake.
Dean was spot on with his 50 state strategy. Spot on. The DNC allowed Dean's strategy to wither and die… pretty much letting whatever, few in number but enthusiastic Democratic infrastructure, that Dean For America had built to without any ongoing support.
Bernie wants to change that. His answer to "why Louisiana" is "exactly Louisiana". His answer to "why Arizona" is "exactly Arizona."
Someone had a post recently claiming that Bernie is doing nothing to build the Democratic Party. Hello? Visiting states as a Democratic candidate and where most Democratic candidates have written off the Democrats and probable Democratic voters who live there, is the epitome of building a strong Democratic Party.
is to freakin' deprogram these people to the best of our abilities.
He is especially connecting with the disaffected non-voter who has given up on politics. That's how we win 
or did I just mess up that quote?
