Free Republic

Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, writes: Apropos the conservatism and "stupidity" issue, you may find interesting the attached data from my analysis of the 2000 National Election Study (the NES is the most comprehensive US survey of political attitudes and knowledge, which breaks down political knowledge by strength of party affiliation. Note that "Strong Republicans" have much higher political knowledge levels than any other group. The 3.3 gap on a 31 point scale between "Strong Republicans" and "Strong Democrats" may not seem like much, but it is the equivalent of that created by a difference of...

Public sees more than'dime's worth of difference'between political parties  George Wallace used to say there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.Maybe. But that’s not how the public sees it.Research by Southern Opinion Research turns up some definite differences in how the public sees the major political parties. Those differences often have powerful effects on Election Day. Republicans have a clear advantage of Democrats as those who would maintain traditional values and a strong defense and hold down taxes. Smaller differences between the parties occur on issues such as fighting crime, running an honest...