Suggests what you (and I) have noted, that pols can and do take away the wrong message. See William Kristol’s item October 28 in the Washington Post, which concludes the GOP just needs to hold to its conservatism like some bright shiny talisman, and voters will flock to them. In fact the clear message is that the Republican Party isn’t satisfying conservative voters, and that will need to be fixed.

I’ve just lost a lengthy comment that way, and I’m not going to take the time/effort to try to recreate it, (maybe I’ll try a short version) but I thought you might want to know about the issue.

Keep up the good work.

I also agree with everyone else who questions the utility of this simple poll where people report their self assessment. It’s so much less useful than a poll which allows people to say grade themselves on a 5-point scale on various issues.

But your point about the GOP moving rightward is well taken. One might argue that what they have become is not so much more conservative as more extreme. And in several directions, many of them far more populist than conservative. But either way, vigorously moving away from the center. Which means that the Democrats’ challenge is to refrain from moving too far to the left, in the belief that they can’t lose. They might be correct, in many cases. But it would be counterproductive in the long run; not to mention bad for the country.

You can argue that people don’t know all the details of Roe vs. Wade, or that most have major problems with certain parts of the decision. I would actually agree with you on those points.

But you cannot argue that someone is an extremist for saying they support Roe vs. Wade. Which is probably why the people who argue Roe vs. Wade was extremist are almost all right-wing.

Thus my point:
Current Republicans are in trouble because they don’t know where the center is. It actually hasn’t moved very far in the past 15-20 years, what’s happened is that the GOP has consistently moved rightward. In 1985 somebody who had reservations about abortion, but in general supported Roe vs. Wade could win a GOP primary and become an important national figure. Now somebody like that is simply doomed.

Perhaps the moderate position on Roe v. Wade ought to be phrased something like Abortion is a tragedy, but should not be illegal. However as Constitutional law, the decision in Roe v. Wade is garbage.

The poll isn’t totally meaningless. It does show that a GOP candidate who could brand his opponent liberal would probably win. The trouble is that the current crop of Republicans screams “liberal” at fairly boring moderates.

For example support for Roe vs. Wade is widespread. Support dipped below 50% once, in 2006, and has always outpolled opposition. This means support for Roe vs. Wade is, by definition, moderate. Yet anybody who says they support Roe vs. Wade is viciously savaged as a far-left loon by most conservative pundits.

Prominent conservatives are calling wolf bit too much lately.

I am afraid I have to agree with the others; center right does not have much meaning anymore. I think most people would consider themselves “fiscally conservative”.

Even that term is hard to pin down. Some people think all it means is jumping up and down and yelling “No taxes” or “Lower taxes” or “Too much spending”–nevermind they only do that when the opposing party is in office, but are fine with “too much spending” when their guy is in office.

Indeed, labels like center right and center left, righ or left, liberal or conservative don’t have much resonance with most people outside the beltway.

We just want to see some friggin common sense.

What is the case is that the VISIBLE (not to mention loud) folks who claim to be conservatives are mostly nut cases. Not to mention the minor detail that they are not really conservatives at all — apparently they just like the label . . . as long as they don’t have to actually act conservatively.

Most of the country (56%) are moderate-to-left, and the moderates seem to be getting further from the right. Conservatives are becoming nut cases, as wj points out, and today’s moderates seem to come mostly in the ‘socially liberal, fiscally pragmatic’ variety.

In addition, you have to deal with the connotation Conservatives have built into the word ‘liberal’ and how that affects self-identification. I think the ‘conservative’ branding may run into similar problems in coming years.

Echoing wj again, the lack of definitions makes this essentially meaningless.

For example, if asked this question, I would have to say that I consider myself a conservative. But if asked about the current Republican Party, I would have to say that between the candidates that they put up, especially at the state and local level, and the people currently leading the Party, I find it rarely is the case that I can vote for a Republican in a general election. That doesn’t keep me from voting in the Republican Party primaries . . . just from voting for a candidate that I opposed in the primary in the general election.

Why not? Because, although I think of myself as a conservative and as a Republican, I view the current crop of “conservative Republicans” as far right nut cases. And, not surprisingly, making my party yet more conservative is unlikely to improve that situation.