Reply #13: Moderate Voters Aren't So Moderate [View All]

[Mnemosyne]

Moderate Voters Aren't So Moderate
(Page 1 of 2)

Oct. 18, 2005
(AP)

Quote

In every presidential election since 1988, the Democratic candidate has won more votes among moderates than the Republican candidate.

(The American Prospect) This column was written by Paul Waldman.The 2006 elections may be a year away, but already Democrats are working hard not to get cocky. With Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the multiple corruption scandals swirling around the Republicans, the ruling party is looking increasingly vulnerable. The president's approval ratings have slipped into the 30-percent neighborhood in some polls, and when people are given the "generic congressional ballot" question — do you think you'll vote for a Democrat or a Republican in next year's election? — Democrats lead by as much as 10 points, a gap that hasn't been seen since before the 1994 election. And we all remember what happened then.

Yet Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) raise a caution. Americans, they argue, are pretty conservative; no matter what is going on this week or this month, conservatives far outnumber liberals, so Democrats always start at a disadvantage. Democrats who want their party to stand up for a strong progressive agenda, they claim, are barking up the wrong tree. Democrats must stick to the center, or lose.

Even those with impeccably liberal pedigrees are making this argument, such as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. "According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate," Dionne wrote. "Those numbers mean that liberal-leaning Democrats are far more dependent than conservatively inclined Republicans on alliances with the political center. Democrats second-guess themselves because they have to." Meanwhile, Michael Barone of the National Journal looked at the same numbers and pronounced us to have "a conservative electorate." Evan Bayh, a probable candidate for president, cited the same figures to argue for a more centrist Democratic Party. "Do the math," he said. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic pronounced the liberal/conservative/moderate split "the most important thing you need to know about contemporary politics."

But all these observers make a mistake common to political elites: assuming that ordinary people look at politics the same way they do.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/18/opinion/main952028.shtml