On Mon, 16 May 2005 19:18:29 -0400, JDG wrote
> At 07:52 AM 5/16/2005 -0700, Nick wrote:
> >"Taken together, the three Democratic groups make up a larger share of 
> >registered voters than do the three Republican groups (44% vs. 33%)."
> 
> But the Pew Center seems to have arbitrarily assigned "conservative
> Democrats" to the "left-leaning" bloc,  and further arbitrarily 
> decided to come up with three groups for each of "left", "center", 
> and "right".   For example, 80% of the "Upbeats" voted for Bush, but 
> that group gets assigned to the "center", rather than the "right."

There's nothing particularly arbitrary about the ordering, given that the 
survey is intended to fit respondents into a continuum of political attitudes. 
 The arbitrary part is where to draw dividing lines, but that's even informed 
by inflection points in the results.

Nick
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