More Americans Identify as Conservative than Republican
Bruce and I almost never coordinate our blogging, only occasionally alerting each other to a post we have planned, so this afternoon I was surprised and pleased to see that he had blogged on the latest Gallup poll showing conservatives maintaining their edge as the top ideological group. Yesterday morning, while in Santa Barbara, I chanced on that very poll via Jennifer Rubin’s Commentary Contentions piece and had scribbled a note (before joining friends for breakfast) to blog on it when I returned to Los Angeles.
But, so caught up was I in my dissertation research when I returned that I didn’t get the blog until late in the afternoon. And Bruce had already brought the poll to your attention. Still, its significance cannot be underestimated. And not just as a rebuke to the president. It also serves as a kind of rebuke to the GOP.
Coupled with a Club for Growth polling showing “Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman surging into the lead in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district to replace John McHugh,” this suggests that the road to Republican victory means adopting more conservative policies–and not following the pundits’ advice in nominating candidates like that race’s GOP nominee, third-place finisher Dede Scozzafava.
Now, contrast this with the latest Gallup poll on party identification. 27% of Americans identify as Republican–that’s 13 points fewer than those who describe themselves as conservative. 35% identify as Democrats–15 points higher than those who describe themselves as liberal.
In a column this past summer, Michael Barone boiled down this phenomenon:
The result is that the two parties have offsetting political advantages. Democrats tend to win on party identification. Republicans tend to win on ideology. Democrats don’t have to appeal to as many independents as Republicans do. Republicans don’t have to appeal to as many moderates as Democrats do.
It’s hard to see Democrats holding onto a third of the electorate if the President and Congress continue in their big-spending liberal ways. Barone’s explanation reinforces our theory that the GOP has been losing ground in recent years because it lost sight of conservative ideology.
But, will those moderates move over to a more conservative GOP? Perhaps, if it’s conservative on the issues where many of them lean to the right. And Gallup polls do suggest that opposing big government is one such issue.
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The Republican party alienates fiscal conservatives like me with their pandering to the religious nutters. Also, they talk small government, but they aren’t really the party of anything of the sort. They just aren’t as socialist as the Democrats. I used to call George Bush the biggest big Democrat since FDR. And whatever happened to “no nation building”? I’m not one of these anti-war nitwits (sometimes you need war to preserve the peace), but attacking Saddam Hussein because Bin Laden’s evildoers hit the WTC is like jailing me because somebody (not me) robbed a bank, and somebody should pay. (I was all for flattening Afghanistan and the terrorist camps with terrible force, by the way. Again, not some anti-war nitwit.)
Comment by Amy Alkon — October 27, 2009 @ 10:08 am - October 27, 2009
Great post Amy. Newt Gingrich said as much on Greta V last night on Fox. Republicans should not be purging any group that don’t agree on the social issues. It is basically shooting themselves in the foot.
The candidate for the Republicans who was nominated by her Party is the one who can win in her District. By splitting the votes with this Conservative candidate Hoffman, they will be giving Pelosi another lackey in her camp.
Social issues should be left out of politics all together and should be left to individuals and their own beliefs. You would see the moderates and independents flock to the Republicans if they would learn that.
By the way, I nominate Newt G for 2012, he is a brilliant man.
Comment by Libertygal — October 27, 2009 @ 11:03 am - October 27, 2009
Like hate crimes, killing fetuses, gay marriage, the fairness doctrine, forced taxation for health care and education, regulating drugs and guns and tobacco and prostitution, and myriad other ways that government pries into our private lives.
Or, maybe, just maybe, we are only talking about a party embracing a sizable voting block of “religious nutters” like Jews or Catholics or Black Baptists or Aggressive Atheists or Scientologists or Angry Agnostics or evangelicals.
Obama should appoint a Czar for Straight Thinking and clear up all this wrong-headed thinking that the unwashed masses keep getting into.
Comment by heliotrope — October 27, 2009 @ 11:26 am - October 27, 2009
What should be in politics and what is are two different things.
I have many disagreements with the Republicans, but I can never ever see myself voting for the Dems. In 9 months they have done unbelievable damage to this country.
Good people tend not to go into politics.
I vote for what is available, not for what I really want.
Comment by Leah — October 27, 2009 @ 11:52 am - October 27, 2009
For too-long the political label “conservative” as been hijacked by the Social-Right…there’s little “conservative” about their political and social agenda, more like a Christianist nanny-state. And just as intrusive as the Left’s victimization-driven nanny-state…
And in both models there’s no role for “small government” nor any kind of fiscal responsibility…just using the government’s “money” in the abstract; when it’s really the People’s money not the State’s. It’s never the government’s money, it’s our money…and taken at gunpoint. (Disagree? Try NOT paying your taxes!)
Comment by ted B. — October 27, 2009 @ 1:55 pm - October 27, 2009
Ah yes, those stupid Christians. How DARE they think tha they should have a voice in American affairs? After all, it’s not like they founded or settled this nation, is it?
Oh wait…
Comment by DaveP. — October 28, 2009 @ 2:10 am - October 28, 2009
[...] Call yourselves “conservative,” not Republican. Daniel Blatt (citing the Gallup Poll): “More Americans Identify as Conservative than [...]
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