On Sun, 15 May 2005 12:11:23 -0400, JDG wrote > First of all, that is not what Dave Land proposed. He proposed > that "17%" was the mainstream.
It seems that we differ with respect to our understanding of what Dave might have meant. I'd rather not assume that either one of is correct until we hear from Dave, as he may not have found the right words for what he was trying to convey. > Secondly, it appears that the Pew Report rather arbitrarily grouped things > into threes. If one considers "Conservative Democrats" to be part > of the "Moderate/Centrist" bloc, the analysis changes quite dramatically. I interpreted as a continuum in which the order is significant to the point where the rearrangement you propose would be nonsense. > I'm sure that much of it has to do prioritizing key issues. For > example, many people would never vote for a pro-segregation > candidate or a pro-baby-killing candidate, regardless of the > candidates' views on other issues. On the other hand, I know that > if an election were held in 2002, I would probably have voted for a > pro-choice pro-Iraq-war candidate over a pro-life anti-Iraq-war > candidate. So, in that sense, I would have voted for a candidate > with whom I very fundamentally disagreed. Is it fair to say, then, that you believe that the Pew study asked the wrong questions to describe the basis on which people have voted in recent elections? If so, I'd be curious to hear what kind of questions might have more accurately done so... and if you're aware of any polls or surveys that come closer, I'd love to see the results. As I said earlier, the survey at hand doesn't seem to do much toward getting past the usual political dimensions, so I'm open to seeing more realistic ones. Otherwise, I think we're stuck with the same old ideologies. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
