In a November 15 article, Newsweek’s Evan Thomas and Richard
Wolffe repeated as fact an assertion previously made by their Newsweek colleague Jon Meacham that notwithstanding
sweeping Democratic victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the country
“remains right of center.” Like several media conservatives, Thomas and Wolffe cited
as evidence exit polling that showed more respondents identifying themselves as
“conservative” than as “liberal.” However, as Media
Matters for America has documented, political scientists
dispute the reliability of voters’ identification with political ideologies,
and Democracy Corps, a Democratic polling group, recently released a poll that showed
strong support for the progressive positions that President-elect Barack Obama
advocated, including the repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy and near-universal
health-care coverage. Indeed, Tod Lindberg, the former editor of The Washington
Times’ editorial page, asserted that
“the only problem” with conservatives claiming America is a
“center-right” country is that “[i]t isn’t true. Or at least,
not anymore.”

In Newsweek, Thomas
and Wolffe wrote:

If there was
any one message that defined the Obama campaign from the beginning, it was his
promise to rise above the petty politics of division and unite the country. But
now comes reality. The newly elected Congress will be left of center,
particularly the old liberal bulls that chair committees and form much of the
leadership of the House and Senate. The
country, on the other hand, remains right of center (exit polls on Election Day
show that 22 percent of voters identify themselves as liberal, 33 percent as
conservative and 46 percent as moderate). Especially in the Senate,
where the Democrats will be perhaps two or three votes shy of the 60 needed to
break a filibuster and pass a bill, compromise and coalition-building will be
the order of the day. If Obama is to accomplish much of anything, he is going
to need all the leadership skills of a Lincoln.

However, as Media Matters
noted, in the 2005
edition of American
Public Opinion*, Robert S. Erikson
and Kent L. Tedin,
political science professors at Columbia University and the University of
Houston, respectively, questioned the reliability of poll questions that ask
voters to self-identify with a political ideology. Erikson and Tedin argued
that “the most politically sophisticated segment of the public” can
more accurately identify as conservative or liberal based on traditional
ideologies. They continued: “But when less sophisticated people respond
to the ideological identification question with a response of liberal,
moderate, or conservative, we can be less sure of what the response means. At
worst, the response represents some idiosyncratic meaning known only to the
respondent, or perhaps a doorstop opinion made up on the spot. … One test is
whether the individual can both identify the Republican as the more
conservative party and offer a plausible definition of the term conservative.
Roughly half the public passes this test of understanding of ideological
labels.”

In a November 16 Washington
Post op-ed, former Washington Times editorial page editor Tod Lindberg also rebutted the claim
that self-identification polling proves that the U.S. is a center-right nation,
writing that the 2008 election results are “just the latest sign that the
country’s political center of gravity is shifting from center-right to
center-left.” Of self-identification exit polls, Lindberg wrote:

True, the percentage of voters
describing themselves as “liberal” and “conservative” has
held relatively constant over many election cycles, with self-described liberals
checking in at 22 percent this time around (up one percentage point over 2004)
and self-described conservatives at 34 percent (unchanged from 2004). The
numbers may not have changed, but the views behind those labels certainly have.
Nowadays, it’s a fair bet that most of those calling themselves
“liberal” support gay marriage.
In 1980, those same liberals were, no doubt, cutting-edge supporters of gay
rights, but the notion of same-sex marriage would have occurred only to the
most avant-garde. In 1980, having a teenage daughter who was pregnant out of
wedlock would have ruled you out for the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket. This year, it turned
out to be a humanizing addition to the conservative vice presidential nominee’s
résumé.

Lindberg was
identified by the Post as
“a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and the editor of Policy
Review. He was an informal foreign policy adviser to the McCain
campaign.”

Additionally, in
a November 10 column published
on the conservative website American Thinker, frequent contributor and attorney Steven
M. Warshawsky criticized the use of self-identification polling by Fox News
contributor Karl Rove and Democratic
strategist Doug Schoen:

One problem with
the analysis offered by Rove and Schoen is that it assumes that voters who
identify themselves as “liberal” or “moderate” or
“conservative” interpret those labels the same way that Rove and
Schoen do. And Rove and Schoen obviously believe that the “moderate”
label implies that a person is right-leaning instead of left-leaning. But is
this correct? Again, I’m skeptical. Until someone explains why supposedly
right-leaning voters flocked to Barack Obama, it seems to me that the notion
that such voters are “conservative” should be taken with more than a
grain of salt.

On the question of whether the U.S. is a
“center-right” country, Warshawsky wrote:

We won’t have a good handle on where
the country stands ideologically until we see what actually happens over the
next two years. Will the American people decide to impose higher taxes on the
“rich” to pay for the smorgasbord of social and economic benefits
that Obama and the Democrats are promising? If so, we are center-left. Will
there be a 1994-style revolt against an overreaching liberal administration? If
so, we are center-right. It is too early to say.

* Erikson, Robert S., and Kent L. Tedin. American Public
Opinion. 7th ed. New York:
Pearson Longman, 2005.

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Notwithstanding sweeping Democratic
victories in 2006 and 2008, several conservative commentators claim America is
ideologically a “center-right” country, citing as evidence general
election exit polls showing that 22 percent of respondents identify themselves as
“liberal,” 44 percent as “moderate” and 34 percent as
“conservative.” But political scientists dispute the reliability of
voters’ identification with political ideologies, saying that those who
do not regularly follow political discourse often lack an understanding of what
constitutes “conservative” and “liberal” principles and policies. Moreover, notwithstanding the findings in exit polling of voter
self-identification, a postelection poll by Democracy Corps found that a
strong majority favored the more progressive position on a number of issues.

In a November 10 column,
New York Times columnist Bill
Kristol wrote that “this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a
center-right country”:

What’s
more, this year’s exit polls suggested a partisan shift but no
ideological realignment. In 2008, self-described Democrats made up 39 percent
of the electorate and Republicans 32 percent, in contrast with a 37-37 split in
2004.

But
there was virtually no change in the voters’ ideological
self-identification: in 2008, 22 percent called themselves liberal, up only
marginally from 21 percent in 2004; 34 percent were conservative, unchanged
from the last election; and 44 percent called themselves moderate, compared
with 45 percent in 2004.

In
other words, this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right
country. Conservatives and the Republican Party will have a real chance for a
comeback — unless the skills of the new president turn what was primarily an
anti-Bush vote into the basis for a new liberal governing era.

In a November 6 column in The Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove wrote:

It is a
tribute to his skills that Mr. Obama, the most liberal member of the U.S.
Senate, won in a country that remains center-right. Most pre-election polls and
the wiggly exits indicate America
remains ideologically stable, with 34% of voters saying they are conservative
– unchanged from 2004. Moderates went to 44% from 45% of the electorate, while
liberals went to 22% from 21%.

In his November 5 Chicago Sun-Times column,
Steve Huntley wrote that “the exit polls showing the Americans who voted
Tuesday described themselves as 44 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative
and only 22 percent liberal. That would seem to portray a center-right
nation”:

You
hear conservatives saying the voters didn’t reject conservative principles in
this election, they rejected a Bush administration and its congressional allies
who had rejected conservative principles.

I’d
like to think that, too, but the verdict is still out and it will probably be
some time before we know if the ground shifted under American politics with Barack
Obama’s resounding victory.

[...]

On the
other side of the argument are the exit polls showing the Americans who voted Tuesday
described themselves as 44 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative and only
22 percent liberal. That would seem to portray a center-right nation.

During the November 7
broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh said:

LIMBAUGH:
This is not a liberal country; it’s not a center-left country. Look at
the exit polls. Look at the number of people who identified themselves as
conservatives versus liberals. This is a center-right country. Barack Obama
– now, some of you are gonna just not believe me on this — Obama, in the
last three weeks of this campaign, was running as a conservative. Tell me the
last liberal you ever heard promising a tax cut for 95 percent of the American
people.

But in the 2005 edition of American Public Opinion*, Robert S. Erikson and Kent L. Tedin,
political science professors at Columbia University and the University of Houston,
respectively, questioned the
reliability of poll questions that ask voters to self-identify with a political
ideology. Noting that “a standard poll question
is to ask respondents their ideological identification, usually with three
choices of liberal, moderate, and conservative, ” Erikson and Tedin wrote:

Ideally,
ideological classification is a convenient way to measure individuals’
core political values and to summarize their political views on a variety of
issues. In practice, the result is mixed. The most politically sophisticated
segment of the public approximates the ideal. For them, ideological
identification goes a long way toward describing their political convictions.
But when less sophisticated people respond to the ideological identification
question with a response of liberal, moderate, or conservative, we can be less
sure of what the response means. At worst, the response represents some
idiosyncratic meaning known only to the respondent, or perhaps a doorstop
opinion made up on the spot. [Page 67]

After listing traditionally conservative
and liberal views, Erikson and Tedin continued: “These kinds of relative
distinctions are familiar to people who follow politics closely. But the
language of ideology holds less meaning for the public as a whole. One test is
whether the individual can both identify the Republican as the more
conservative party and offer a plausible definition of the term conservative. Roughly half the public
passes this test of understanding of ideological labels” [Page 68].

Moreover, as Media Matters for America documented, Democracy
Corps, a Democratic polling group, released a poll
on November 7
that showed strong support for the progressive positions that President-elect
Barack Obama advocated, including the repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy and
near-universal health-care coverage. The poll also included questions that
provided a direct choice between the position taken by Obama on a given issue
and that taken by Sen. John McCain (without referring to Obama or McCain) –
with the more progressive choice echoing Obama’s position and the more
conservative echoing McCain’s. For most questions that juxtaposed a clear
progressive view with a clear conservative view, the progressive position was
more popular.

* Erikson, Robert S., and Kent L.
Tedin. American Public Opinion. 7th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.

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Liberal-leaning interest groups are euphoric about Barack Obama’s election, of course — and their conservative counterparts are correspondingly glum. But political scientists say that giddy liberal advocates now compiling policy wish lists for the first Democratic president in eight years and his party’s more robust majority in Congress may well end up disappointed. And the [...]

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