Battleground Poll August 2004 - The Growing Conservative Majority

Mens News Daily ^ | August 29, 2004 | Bruce Walker

[Vision Thing]

The rock solid statistic in the latest Battleground Poll, the number that actually means something, the salient political fact that I have been raising in articles for the last several years, is found in the "housekeeping" section of the questionnaire: Question D3 on Page 11 of the sixteen page questionnaire.

It bears repeating: "When thinking about politics, do you consider yourself to be..." and then it lists six options for responders, which are "Very conservative," "Somewhat conservative," "Moderate," "Somewhat liberal," "Very Liberal," and "Unsure/Refused."

Precise recitation of these options is important because Leftists typically respond to polls which show that America is conservative by saying something like "Oh, no - it is really moderate, not conservative" or "Most people do not really have an ideological position."

That is completely false. This Battleground Poll, like the five before it over the last four years, have given Americans the easy option of calling themselves a "moderate" or of simply saying that the "don't know" or "refused to answer."

Those Americans who call themselves conservative in this latest Battleground Poll constitute exactly sixty percent of the American public. The rest - all of the rest, including "moderates" and "unsure" and "refused to answer" and every shade of "liberal" - constituted exactly forty percent of the American public.

Those who actually called themselves "Somewhat liberal" or "Very liberal" was only thirty-four percent. The difference between "conservatives" and "liberals" in America is today a whopping twenty-six percentage points.

If every conservative voted for President Bush and Republican candidates, and every other voter voted for Senator Kerry and Democrat candidates, the result would be a landslide virtually unprecedented in modern American political history. Kerry would struggle to carry his home state of Massachusetts and might well lose every state in the Union.

If every conservative voted Republican and every liberal Democrat and the rest stayed home or broke evenly, Democrats would lose almost every Senate race in the nation and a landslide defeat at every other level - congressional, state and local.

What is more remarkable is that these Battleground Polls are consistent in showing an overwhelming conservative majority over liberals, moderates and indifferent Americans, but that these very thorough polls show the divide between "conservative" and "liberal" has never been greater. Since June 2002, Battleground Polls have showed an overwhelming majority of Americans (not just Americans who chose "conservative" or "liberal" were conservatives.)

In September 2003, a bit under sixty percent of Americans called themselves "conservative" while thirty-five percent of Americans called themselves "liberal." In April 2004, the Battleground Poll showed a bit under sixty percent of Americans were "conservative" while thirty-seven percent of Americans were "liberal.." What about the Battleground Poll a couple of months ago, in June 2004? Fifty-nine percent of Americans called themselves "conservative" while thirty-eight percent of Americans called themselves "liberal."

As the campaign has gotten more serious, the gap between "conservatives" and "liberals" has widened from twenty percentage points to twenty-six percentage points - a wider gap than any of the previous Battleground Polls. Kerry, the most liberal member of the United States Senate, cannot long pretend that he is not distinctly to the Left of President Bush. The party that allowed him to be anointed cannot long pretend that it did not know he was a Leftist.

Forget the trial heats in that poll. Polls are already beginning to show that Americans are paying attention to the ideology of the candidates and their parties and there is a distinct drift toward President Bush. The more Americans look at the two candidates and their parties, the more Americans will move toward the Republican Party and a Bush landslide.

[Salvation]

**The Growing Conservative Majority**

I'm liking the sounds of these words!

[VadeRetro]

What all this shows is that some people who call themselves conservatives are clueless jerks who only know when they're mad about something or being pandered to (which they like).

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If a person is going to be conservative, doesn't he need to act that way i.e. isn't it true that saying so doesn't make it so?

The first step toward becoming a thing is to aspire to becoming that thing.

[datura]

Don't let anyone BS you about who is what - it's all quite simple.

Conservatives believe in smaller government, less taxation (because the gov't is smaller it doesn't cost so much), strong defense, national sovereignty over the UN, anti-abortion, and generally believe that God exists - no matter how one wishes to worship.

Liberals or "progressives" as they call themselves now, are essentially socialists or communists. Marxism and the State are their religion, and nothing is written in stone to them. It's all about how something makes them "feel", regardless of the legality. (Plus the laws don't apply to them in their eyes.) They generally feel that they are superior to everyone else, for reasons that only they know. Their long term goal is the establishment of the New World Order, an authoritarian style of government very similar to the USSR, but with the UN as the world's government. They tend to use cataclysmic fear and ignorance of the masses to pass legislation and regulations to bring about their goals and circumvent the Constitution. When the system denies them their goals, they use fraud to win elections, and the judicial branch as a defacto legislative system. Commonly known as 'vermin'. (No daily limit.)

[ValenB4]

Sorry, I'm not buying it, as much as I'd like to believe it. Most liberals live their lives in a conservative manner. What people call themselves isn't as important as how they vote. We have had three consecutive elections in which the Left has outvoted the Right. Until that pattern changes after a few election cycles, I would say things are going to remain pretty much as they have been.

[deport]

Interesting, not that it means a lot.

D3. When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be...
(READ LIST, ROTATE TOP TO BOTTOM, BOTTOM TO TOP)

Very conservative..........19%
Somewhat conservative......41%
MODERATE (DNR) .............3%
Somewhat liberal...........26%
Very liberal................8%
UNSURE/REFUSED (DNR) .......4%

[Nova]

I haven't seen idiot Bill Maher(sp), of "Politically Incorrect," for quite a while, but he always used to refer to himself as a "true conservative."

[deport]

Battleground Poll at the following link..... questionaire with percentages and analysis by Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake......

http://www.tarrance.com/battleground.html

[hford02]

I'm probably "very conservative" as well, but I'm not like the gal with the bumper sticker I saw in Boulder the other day: "PAGAN VEGAN for KERRY"

[uncbob]

Yeah that's why Gore nad Nader won the popular vote

[ValenB4]

In some ways he is correct. Assuming the true definition of conservatism can be found in the writings of Edmund Burke, who is considered to be the ideological founder of conservatism, then he would be. And many of today's conservatives would not be.

[Freedom4US]

Remember that polls and polling are bought and sold. Lots of "push" polling goes on in order to help shape debates and public policy. Citing poll data is a way of isolating popular sentiment by falsely implanting the idea that one hold's contrary opinions to the majority. Consider that less than half the eligible citizens even bother to vote!

Polling also has the effect of making "fence sitters" vote with the perceived majority? Or, alternatively, stay home. .02c

[lowercoloradoriver]

Is that a real group? Pagan Vegans for Kerry?

It wouldn't surprise me.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Of course, lefties have been running from the word "liberal" for some time now. They tend to call themselves "progressive" these days. I wonder what a poll would show if the more current word for leftists was used. My guess is that the results would be tighter, but that "conservatives" would still command a comfortable majority.

[yooper]

Many people vote for the party which least represents their values, at least in a geographic sense, though they have no reason why. I am Yooper; the handle derives from the fact that I am from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The vast, vast, vast majority of my fellow Yoopers exhibit extreme conservative values. A house without at least a dozen guns in it is very rare here, those guns are mainly used for killing and eating wild animals, the populace is extremely religious, competition on every level from business to sports is still practiced with good-natured viciousness, and the region abounds with citizens who wish to live in relative hermitage, a respectable distance away from their neighbors. They want to be left alone, yet their hospitality to strangers is legendary.

So why do these people traditionally vote democrat? The answer is simple: most people here are people who stayed here or came back here because their ancestors are from here. Those ancestors most likely worked the mines or lumbercamps and were democrats, back when a democrat wasn't a socialist or communist. They raised their kids to be respectful of their heritage, and their heritage was with the democrat party.

Those kids, now adults, respected their parent's wishes so much that they to this day continue to vote democrat, despite people like Bill Clinton and John Kerry.

It maddens me to no end. Yet there you are.

[omniscient]

Allowing those being polled to classify themselves is very misleading. The term "liberal" has become a dirty word (deservedly so) and aversion to this term is skewing the poll results. Better to ask about the basics like abortion, capital punishment, gay marriage, affirmative action, etc. This will smoke out the pretenders real quick.

[billie bob]

in June 2004? Fifty-nine percent of Americans called themselves "conservative" while thirty-eight percent of Americans called themselves "liberal." Now we need to get these people involved in the process and voting.

A person I know says he's conservative. He claims Clinton was the best President we ever had. Anyone can think they are conservative?

[Amelia]

That's encouraging! I hope it's true!

Thanks very much for the ping.

[WOSG]

The Democrats were hijacked by the New Left in the 1960s and its voters like those you describe that are selling our whole country down a river because of it.

[WOSG]

I find these numbers very surprising...
it would be interesting to collate against party ID,
and specific beliefs, eg, free trade, gun control, lower taxes, defense, marriage, etc.