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"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32
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Author:  Bruce Walker
Bio: Bruce Walker
Date:  March 2, 2006
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The Battleground Poll and the Key to Victory

Should President Bush be working to shore up support with his conservative base, or will he be helped in polls more by moving to the middle?

Should President Bush be working to shore up support with his conservative base, or will he be helped in polls more by moving to the middle? The Battleground Poll released on March 2, 2006 confirms what I have written about in a number of past articles. This intensive, bipartisan and very accurate poll covers a lot of questions that really do not matter. Then it asks, in Question D3, the one question that does matter: “When thinking about politics and government do you consider yourself …”

What follows are precisely six options: very conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, somewhat liberal, very liberal and no answer (or refused to answer.) The Battleground Poll is only published about once every ten months or so. The results are intended to reflect a solid and consistent American opinion.

The answers to that question, again in the latest Battleground Poll, have shown what every single Battleground Poll has shown: the overwhelming majority of Americans are conservative. If the Republican nominee in 2008 got only the votes of American conservatives, if every single moderate and if every single fence sitter voted for the Democrat nominee, then the Republican would win fifty-nine percent of the popular vote, a landslide whose proportions have only been equaled three times since the Civil War.

If the Republican nominee received the votes of American conservatives and the moderates and no answer voters either broke evenly or stayed at home, then that nominee would receive about sixty-two percent of the popular vote, a landslide of historic proportions which would almost certainly include every state except, perhaps, Vermont.

Is this news? It should not be. My first article noting the overwhelmingly conservative self-identification of American voters was based upon the June 2002 Battleground Poll, exactly fifty-nine percent of Americans considered themselves very conservative or somewhat conservative, while only thirty-five percent of Americans considered themselves very liberal or somewhat liberal. The Battleground Poll of March 2006 showed exactly the same percentage of very conservative or somewhat conservative voters, while the number of very liberal or somewhat liberal voters was thirty-six percent.

The September 2003 Battleground Poll showed fifty-nine percent of Americans considered themselves very conservative or somewhat conservative, while thirty-five percent of Americans considered themselves very liberal or somewhat liberal. The April 2004 Battleground Poll showed that sixty percent of Americans considered themselves conservative or very conservative, while thirty-seven percent of Americans considered themselves somewhat liberal or very liberal. The September 2004 Battleground Poll showed sixty percent of Americans considered themselves very conservative or somewhat conservative, while thirty-four percent of Americans considered themselves very liberal or somewhat liberal.

Five months ago, in October 2005, sixty-one percent of Americans considered themselves very conservative or somewhat conservative, while thirty-five percent of Americans considered themselves somewhat liberal or very liberal. In the last four years, in five different Battleground Polls spread over a wide period of time the number of Americans who consider themselves conservative has never been less than fifty-nine percent of the popular vote and the number of Americans who consider themselves liberal has never been more than thirty-seven percent. The gap between conservatives and liberals, in percentage points, in the last seven Battleground Polls has been, starting from April 2002: 23%, 22%, 24%, 23%, 26%, 26% and 23%. The ideological division of America has remained remarkably stable, with the current 23% being the most common difference.

Even if we cherry pick, and have liberals at their high-water mark and conservatives at their low-water mark in these seven polls, in head to head competition (excluding or splitting the moderates or no answer voters) the conservative candidate receives sixty-one percent of the popular vote, or more than Ronald Reagan received in 1984.

And even this does not factor in the fact that conservative voters tend to be more likely to vote than liberal or apathetic voters. It does not factor in that when these percentages are translated into numbers of states (and potential Senate seats) that about eighty percent of the Senate would be conservative.

All of this is great news. It has been great news for the last four years. All we need to do is transform that underlying reality of American politics into an unstoppable force in electoral politics. There is a reason why, outside of Vermont, no one campaigns as a liberal. There is a reason why we have every incentive to make the ideological lines in elections as bright as possible, and take the strategy of Ronald Reagan in the Cold War: “How about this? We win. They lose.”

Bruce Walker

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Biography - Bruce Walker

Bruce Walker has been a published author in print and in electronic media since 1990. He is a regular contributor to WebCommentary, Conservative Truth, American Daily, Enter Stage Right, Intellectual Conservative, NewsByUs and MenÕs News Daily. His first book, Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie by Outskirts Press was published in January 2006.


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Copyright © 2006 by Bruce Walker
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