Friday, February 26, 2016

Parsing the American electorate

By Mouser the King Cat

Wondering why so-called conservatives can’t or won’t fight to conserve much of the traditional American way of life? Why politicians promise reform and then line up with the corrupt establishment when they get to Washington? Why some branch of government has to be in your face every day?

You might be a libertarian and not realize it.

The Cato Institute points out new research.

For more than a dozen years now, the Gallup Poll has been using two questions to categorize respondents by ideology:

Some people think the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Others think that government should do more to solve our country’s problems. Which comes closer to your own view?

 Some people think the government should promote traditional values in our society. Others think the government should not favor any particular set of values. Which comes closer to your own view?

 Gallup’s 2015 governance survey pegged 26% of the electorate as conservative, 23% liberal and 15% populist. But wait a minute -- 27% could be considered libertarians, the highest number ever recorded and up 5 percentage points from 2013.

Cato’s David Boaz analyzes: For now I just want to note that there are indeed a lot of voters who don’t fit neatly into the red and blue boxes … But a large portion of Americans hold generally libertarian views – views that might be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

I’ll further point out that the percentages don’t add up to 100, and more than rounding is involved. My guess is the missing 9% are busy drinking the Hillary Kool-Aid, beyond help. Or maybe they are political pundits and couldn’t get their heads out of their asses to answer.

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