Gallup: Independents Moving To The Right
There’s a key piece of news buried in the new Gallup poll: A leading reason conservatives are maintaining their edge as the top ideological group is that independents appear to be moving to the right:
Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008.
Here’s why this is interesting: It bucks a trend that appeared to be underway earlier this year. In the wake of Obama’s electoral success among independents, some analysts noted that independents appeared increasingly aligned with the political views of Dems and increasingly well-disposed towards Obama’s unabashed embrace of ambitious, activist government.
This, among other factors, persuaded many Dems that Obama was on the verge of transforming the electorate in a way that would further marginalize Republicans. But if indys are swinging conservative again, that’s one data point suggesting those predictions were overly optimistic.
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I do not believe this ****, Greg. Not for one second.
Tena — at least you didn’t call me Eric.
Do you think this is more a factor of the Republicans losing voters who now refer to themselves as Independents rather than those who’ve voted as Independents in the past changing their views?
Mike — fair question — I wouldn’t think so at first glance…after all, Repubs lost those indys a year ago. we’re seeing a swing to the right among indys SINCE then. my read, anyway. but worth digging into further I think…
“at least you didn’t call me Eric. ”
About 2/3s of my brain is still in Taos, or I would have.
LOL
oh jeez, not this shite again. “that’s one data point”. ’nuff said.
Or, if you look at THIS Pollster Average you can see Independents gained significantly at the loss of Republicans, particularly around June time frame.
I’d say the serious conservatives concerned about debt and national security have moved to the Independent column leaving only the most rabid Republican/Bush apologists/Obama is a terrorist crowd to roll around in what’s left of the Republican party.
I think conservatism has been badly marred by the corporate welfare kings/social conservatives that have taken it over.
“hink conservatism has been badly marred by the corporate welfare kings/social conservatives that have taken it over.”
If conservatives don’t get it by now – you cannot trust the GOP with your tax dollars – then they are hopelessly doctrinaire. Every Republican president since Reagan ran up a deficit. We ended their administrations in recessions, almost across the board.
Guys…re Greg’s first post this morning – there’s an excellent piece by James Vega this morning – a must read…
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/
The reason independents, on the whole, seem to be moving to the right is that so many people who would’ve formerly identified themselves as Republicans refuse to do so now because of how unhinged the GOP has become this year. They still consider themselves conservative, and probably still hold many of the views we’d define as conservative, but they will no longer associate themselves with the GOP, leading to a larger number of independents self-identifying as conservatives.
Formerly left leaning or moderate independents aren’t suddenly becoming conservative. Instead, former GOP conservatives are becoming independents.
” A leading reason conservatives are maintaining their edge as the top ideological group”
Who says conservatism is the “top ideology”? Come on, Greg – I am going to call you Erik for that one.
Only the 2010 election results will tell us anything about where the country stands. All this premature projecting, is mere idle chit-chat.
District races, and the choices voters will have to make, have not even been established yet, so how the hell can Independents know who they are going to vote for.
Good point Boston Jerry. If the meme “indies are moving right” is right, then where is the bleeding happening ? Greg to note this point.
”
Barack Obama’s approval rating with people who didn’t vote for him is 14%.
Barack Obama’s disapproval rating with people who voted for him is 6%.
So he’s won over twice as many people as he’s lost since he got elected. Who in the national media is going to write that story?”
This is from Bernie’s link and it makes more sense to me than this idea that the country wants to go right again. I don’t think so.
Tena — I don’t think the country wants to move right again. But it does seem clear that indys are more cautious about Obama then they were six months ago. Dems would be foolish to ignore this, heading into the 2010 elections, and they are considering it.
Interesting that 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative. Also note that “there are no major examples of U.S. public opinion becoming more liberal in the past year.” To me this means that Obama needs to pull a Clinton and begin to govern more from the middle – I think that’s what most people thought they were going to get when they voted for him.
” But it does seem clear that indys are more cautious about Obama then they were six months ago. D”
If it’s true, Greg, then that’s because the media has worked overtime to make sure they feel this way. Never has a president been nitpicked like this one and I have my own idea about why this is so. It’s practically not even a conscious thing in my view.
Enough said.
Kind of hard to figure out what’s really going on when this is all in percentages.
I mean, at this point Republicans are more conservative than ever before, because they’ve been whittled down to their base. In fact, you’d expect more independents to be conservative, because the least conservative Republicans are leaving their party and identifying as independents. While at the same time, the most progressive independents are identifying as Democrats. In that situation, the median independent would have become more conservative, precisely BECAUSE the electorate as a whole became more progressive.
That might be going on, it might not be going on. The stat “independents more conservative than before” won’t tell you much.
This needs to be put in the context of the percentage of the electorate that is Democratic, independent, and Republican.
Greg, indies moving to the right.
Cute.
2010 ? Too far. HCR is the one thing that will prove all these ‘pollsters’ are as stoopid as the ones that cite them (and of course the wingnuts). Their real worth was there for everyone to see in 2008 elections.
SBJ: Interesting that 22% of Democrats consider themselves conservative.
I think this may, in part anyway, be a feature of the demonization of the term ‘liberal’ over recent decades, which has eventually led to the abandonment of the term by much of the left in favor of ‘progressive’. Not completely mind you, but a lot of people find themselves not wanting to be identified as ‘liberals’.
I’m never too concerned with what people call themselves. If the majority of the country sees themselves as conservative, why didn’t they vote that way? Apparently the majority of conservatives voted for Obama? Don’t ask for party idendification. Ask them how they’ve voted!
36% say they are moderates. Does the poll spell where they stand on social issues. Polling by labels does not tell us very much.
As things now stand; The Republicans have nothing to offer those centrist type of voters. The Republicans are engaging in a civil war to drive out those it deems to be Moderates. Even Senator Lindsey Graham is not ideologically pure enough for the hard core base of the party.
The Republicans are not in a position to win majorities in very few districts outside of the south. They are a rump party with very large margins in their rump party region of the country. Those huge margins in the south, make their figures look stronger nationally than they really are.
sbj
I think you’re wrong that Obama needs to move more to the center. He’s already in the center otherwise there wouldn’t be so many progressives questioning his allegience to their agenda.
Almost everyone on the right has bought into he’s a “socialist”, “neo-marxist” radical but he just isn’t governing that way. Everyone needs to take a real look at what he’s doing and how moderate he really is.
Tena — you know I wouldn’t disagree with you about the media.
And amk — you know I agree that success with HCR could be transformative, I’ve said so many times.
boston jerry, I agree with that, with the caveat that the GOP shrinkage happened six months to a year ago. the indy movement to the right, such as it is, happened since then.
@holy: You may be correct, although my personal view was that the term “liberal” had come back into favor as of late. I think that anonymous makes some great points, too. I find it interesting that the Gallup poll finds so many Democrats to consider themselves moderate or conservative, and yet this site seems to attract only the liberal Democrats? At least that’s my reading. I wonder if any moderate or conservative Democratic readers of this blog would like to identify as such?
Greg: I noticed over time that you post polling data with some commentary almost every day. There comes a point at which much of this is ephemeral. The independents who flocked to Obama may well be moving away for a reason: the disillusionment over the absence of “change they can believe in”.
But if another poll says 20% of the population is Republican then why assume these people are going in that direction. It looks like a plague on both houses.
Polling has become a pretty prenicious influence on our political discourse. As I said above,you are commenting on this almost every day and twice. I don’t get it. Are you into hourly swings?
@lmsinca: Well, unfortunately we are going to disagree that Obama has been moderate so far. I agree that his foreign policy in some areas has been moderate. But I think his domestic priorities are mostly liberal. Not a whole lot has passed yet so it’s a bit early to judge perhaps? I think there is a real danger that he loses the support of conservative Dems and moderate and conservative independents.
Mr. Sargent:
“A leading reason conservatives are maintaining their edge as the top ideological group is that independents appear to be moving to the right:”
Wonderful work you Moonbats are doing on our behalf.
Like Tena publicly saying that Saddam should have been left in charge in Iraq because he “knew how to run the place”.
We conservatives are forever in your debt for the recruitment you are doing for us.
Please…continue.
Ah, sbj – your ‘concern’ for Obama’s welfare is really touching.
Greg, you know that you parsing polls is like catnip for me.
I think it is more about Republicans only being 20% of the electorate which means that many of the Independents were once Republicans but are so disgusted with the party that they consider themselves Indies rather than being part of the GOP. And that is why it “appears” that Indies are becoming more conservative when they were really ex-Republicans.
sbj:
“I wonder if any moderate or conservative Democratic readers of this blog would like to identify as such?”
You will recall commenter Tom, who left in disgust at the character of the Moonbats here in the sweat-lodge,, was apparently a Democrat. He self-identified as such.
alan: I understand that argument. the flip side of it, though, is that when folks try to portray public opinion as being more conservative than it is, polls do have value as a corrective, I’d argue.
Saddam Hussein was left in charge, and given Chemical and Biological Weapons by:
Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George Herbert Walker Bush.
Bush even gave Saddam the Green Light to turn Chemical Ali loose on the Shiites, after he pulled out of Kuwait.
I have seen no information supporting the idea that conservatives are moving away from the GOP because it has become too conservative — a rather fatuous theory to begin with.
Moreover, if it were true, would this not spell ideological trouble for Democrats?
As for how a radical candidate could be elected in a basically conservative country, these kinds of things happen all the time, for a variety of reasons. I’ll just mention one: Obama ran as if he were a centrist or even conservative. It was preposterous to anyone informed person, but most people are uninformed.
“Every Republican president since Reagan ran up a deficit. We ended their administrations in recessions, almost across the board.”
Hmmm. Factually speaking, there have been Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. Only Tena would think that 1 our of 3 is “almost across the board.”
Maybe the media’s continued demonization of liberalism and Democrats and their tendency to mostly include only conservative commentary is paying off. That is a hard phenomena to break through.
Aren’t a lot of teabaggers leaving the GOP and becoming independent? Wouldn’t that skew the independent results to the conservative side but at the GOP’s loss?
“Maybe the media’s continued demonization of liberalism and Democrats and their tendency to mostly include only conservative commentary is paying off. That is a hard phenomena to break through.”
The media = whom? The official media is almost monolithically liberal and has virtually worshipped Obama.
“I think this may, in part anyway, be a feature of the demonization of the term ‘liberal’ over recent decades, which has eventually led to the abandonment of the term by much of the left in favor of ‘progressive’.”
I think you’re absolutely right. The right has spent almost 30 years demonizing “Liberal.”
Greg – are Indys moving right or are the newly Independent (read former identified Republicans) simply pulling the Indys as a group to the right? I mean, let’s get real here. Approx 20% self-identify as Republican. Where did everyone else go? The were more likely to move to Independent then Dem. I think the former Republicans are just pulling those Independent numbers to the right.
@Trinity,
You are correct. They have just moved from being Open Republicans to currently being Closet Republicans. After Bush/Cheney, they are ashamed to admit that they still support The Republican Party, but they do.
nickleback asks “The media = whom?”
Pick your favorite.
Talk Radio? Corporate radio monopolists push right wing radio 9 to 1 despite the clear market for liberal radio.
Print media? Aren’t the majority of print owners, managers, and editors right wingers?
FOX? Fox is run by Republican Nixon’s old TV producer, Roger Ailes. Fox hosts run between the far right and outright right wing extremists. Fox is pure Republican Propaganda.
CBS? Right wing sycophant Bob Schieffer is so far up Republican McCain’s colon he needs a flashlight.
Katie Couric handed her microphone to right wing extremist Rush Limbaugh the first week she was the anchor of the evening news. Kouric gave Republican Palin a softball interview that only looked tough because Palin was so painfully unprepared.
Speaking of Republican McCain, how is it that he’s now a permanent part of corporate TV’s Sunday broadcast? Where’s his equivalent? Certainly Kerry never got that
Disney/ABC? ABC still has on the global climate change denying right winger George Will nearly every Sunday. Lately he’s been regularly joined on Disney/ABC by the right wing torture advocate Liz Cheney who is given trying to rewrite history to keep her war criminal father out of prison.
Time-Warner/CNN? CNN’s right wing racist host Lou Dobbs is competing with Fox Republican hosts to see who can spew more toxic lies.
GE/NBC/MSNBC? The three hours of Republican politician Joe Scarborough was NOT balanced until just this year. MSNBC even FIRED the only liberal it had on years ago. (And yes, just this year there are now three hours to balance Republican Scarbogough’s three hours.)
NBC’s David Gregory, Republican Karl Rove’s former dance partner, rarely has an actual liberal on, and when he does they are usually outnumbered 4 to 1.
Reefer,
That’s clearly the lunatic/moronic post of the week. I don’t even know what else there is to say about it, and I won’t bother trying to unpack all the levels of ignorance it entails. You are beyond reason or hope.
What mike from Arlington said above:
* GOP is bleeding numbers.
* not many of them are leaving to the Dems, but instead to Indy
* most of them are Fiscal Conservatives
* they’re turned off by other things in the party (Bush, unhinged far right, social conservatives)
A good deal of the “growth” of the Dems in registration has been new voters rather than party switches.
This isn’t exactly terrible as the Dems are fairly fiscally conservative, the hype notwithstanding. The worry is the the Economy will still be an issue, and the positive of the current spending will get buried under Deficiet Hawk grabage during the election.
The White House is having limited success with the economy (prevent a depression while not ending the recessions), and haven’t framed the spending well at all. They have just 12 months left. With more spending being needed, they’re likely to run into an issue getting it… bad catch-22.
John
Greg, the number of people who are willing to self-identify as “Republican” is down to 20% or so. Could it not be the case that there are more disgruntled Conservatives are refusing to call themselves Republican than previously?
The Coming Civil War
America is much divided on whether individual or community interests are most important. One side says people’s interests are harmonious with their neighbors in community. It’s a simple premise and the base of the American political system, as expressed by the 19th century Democrats (see THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon books and http://www.claysamerica.com). Men labor, exchange, learn, band together, act, and react upon one another, and in this way, there can result from their free and intelligent activity, order, harmony, progress, prosperity and all things that are good and better. Just observing the free market and the prosperity of America proves this premise.
Communities are made up of men and women, and each in America is a free agent. As free agents, they can choose. Since they can choose, they can be mistaken. Since they can be mistaken, they can suffer. Many make mistakes and suffer; as they start from ignorance, and in their ignorance they see before them an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which, except one, lead to mistakes. Mistakes breed suffering. Suffering falls upon the person who was mistaken and requires personal responsibility. Their actions, coupled with the intelligence that has been given them to see the connection between cause and effect, will bring them back, by their suffering, to a path of truth.
Many, on the other side, believe men’s interests, left to their own devices, will never combine harmoniously. They believe those interests, allowed to develop freely, lead mankind to injustice, inequality and poverty, simply because of the ugly and sinful nature of men. Therefore, they must oppose that simple premise. They must destroy American society as it is now because it grew from the sinful nature of man. They want to try another way. They believe the interests of community are more important than are the interests of the individual, the long established world governing principle of the few elite ruling the many. We just elected a President and political party that claim this position.
Individual freedom advocates do not deny mistakes exist; but recognize their purpose in community. If wrong-thinking is to fulfill its purpose, community must not encroach artificially upon individual responsibility. This is the tendency of most of our governing institutions, like parents and those offering remedies for the mistakes that afflict us. Under the philanthropic pretext of giving us a helping hand, the individual’s sense of responsibility fades. The freedom of the individual to make mistakes is not respected.
Trying to force all Americans into a system of slavery, where government is the master, may cause a new civil war to erupt. Our tradition, based upon the first premise, has proven better than any system ever devised on this planet. If we look at the rest of the world, where eighty percent are starving and struggling to stay alive, America looks bright and wholesome. Many Americans may prefer to fight than capitulate to Obama and the modern Democrats serving the collective interests.
Clay Barham’s right wing utopia apparently starts with the violent overthrow of America’s democracy so that a handful of anarchists can do whatever they please.
We’ve already got much of Barham’s right wing utopia operating in America right now: Over 44 THOUSAND Americans die each year because of lack of health insurance.
And since over 14 THOUSAND Americans lose their health insurance every day as part of the 2007 Great Recession’s fallout, so there will likely be even more deaths because those Americans lack health insurance.
Because of Barham’s ‘everyone out for themselves’ idiotology, we’ve collectively got over 14 9/11’s every year.
Americans die in vast numbers because the right wing (with the support of a handful of Democrats), protect a corporate-medical-profiteering industry over the health of American lives.
Barham’s right wing ‘everyone out for themselves’ (myopic) utopian world view means that a minority reap the profits from a majorities deaths and diseases.
It’s a sick world view, but because right wing predators profit from the sick systems they are protecting, they are completely indifferent to anyone else.
That’s the heart of the right-wing/libertarian/conservative world view: I’ve got mine, to hell with you.
The right wing turns it’s back on dying Americans.
The left wing is trying to prevent the deaths of Americans.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you you aren’t a subtle thinker, Reefer.