http://americanthinker.com/2014/10/politicos_poll_and_conservative_strength.htmlOctober 23, 2014
Politico's Poll and Conservative Strength
By Bruce Walker
Every national poll by every recognized polling organization shows that conservatives dramatically outnumber liberals in America. For a covertly leftist establishment media, complete with organs of subtle propaganda and selective misinformation, the best strategy for handling the uncomfortable fact of a conservative majority in America is to hide or at least contort it.
Treating conservatives like a despised minority is the very heart of leftist demonology. The left purports to represent America and claims vast powers because it is the champion of ordinary people. Terms like “radical right wing” and “extreme conservative” are the essence of leftist rhetoric. It is inconceivable that any establishment organization would deliberately inflate the perceived strength of conservatism in America. If conservatives are the majority in America, then the establishment will hide that fact or cover it up with as much meaningless glop as possible.
Witness the Politico poll just released in mid-October. Skim down to Question 31, asking respondents to identify themselves ideologically: “Liberal” 17%, “Moderate” 44%, “Conservative” 38%, and “Declined to Answer” 1%. If that is true, then the left is a small minority in America, but conservatives are not a majority. But Question 32 pushes the ideological envelope, asking moderates which way they “lean” – "Liberal" 25%, “Moderate” 45%, “Conservative” 28%, and “Declined to Answer” 2%.
Exclude those who declined to answer and put those “Moderate” respondents who affirmatively chose to lean “Conservative,” rather than “Liberal” or “Moderate” or “Declined to Answer,” as “Conservative,” and the resilient conservative majority emerges (again) at 51% of all respondents. Only 28% of respondents are “Liberal.” The remaining “Moderate” moderates – 45% of “Moderates” said that they lean “Moderate” – are 20% of the population.
This is a consistent pattern of how establishment polling organizations treat the conservative majority in America. Pew Research in June presented results of its “2014 Political Polarization in the American Public” survey. A cursory skimming of the findings suggests that Americans are more liberal than conservative and that the gap is growing, with 27% conservative and 34% liberal in the latest report.
These data, however, reflect instead how Pew Research identifies respondents’ ideology and not how respondents identify their own ideology. In the same data, when Americans are asked how they identify themselves ideologically, the results are dramatically different: 23% of Americans call themselves “Liberal,” 36% call themselves “Moderate,” and 36% call themselves “Conservative.” Removing the five percent who did not respond and splitting the self-defined “Moderates” into three equal groups, 51% of Americans consider themselves conservative, while 36% consider themselves liberal.
Considering that the whole thrust of this research article seems to be that self-identified “Conservative” Americans don’t know what they are talking about, it is hard to imagine an intentional inflation of their numbers. Certainly the highlighted findings of the survey suggest that Americans who are truly “Conservative” are relatively intolerant and unwilling to cooperate, compared to those who are truly “Liberal” who want diversity and compromise, which sounds just like a leftist professor lecturing his conservative students on their general stupidity.
The salient fact in all these polls, especially the state polls conducted by local news organizations, is that conservatives outnumber liberals even in states where “Conservative” roughly translates into “brain-dead member of the Ku Klux Klan.” Go to SurveyUSA and peruse the latest statewide election polls. (Recall that all these polls are conducted by different local media polling organizations, none of which has a conservative bent.)
Here are the self-identified ideology results in the latest local election polls Survey USA has for the following states generally considered liberal. Washington: 29% conservative and 24% liberal; Oregon: 26% conservative and 26% liberal; Colorado: 31% conservative and 18% liberal; Nevada: 36% conservative and 17% liberal; Minnesota: 32% conservative and 19% liberal; California: 27% conservative and 23% liberal.
Every poll shows the same pattern, always – no matter how the data is covered and no matter how much the numbers are tweaked. America is a conservative nation, and Americans consistently – and despite the political incorrectness of it – call themselves conservative.
