If you consider yourself in the middle of the (American) political spectrum I would really like your input as to how you generally vote.
I personally would place my votes as 60% Conserv, 25% Liberitarian, 10% Rep. 5% other but I don’t define myself as a centrist.
I am really interested in the people who define themselves as centrists.
Good luck finding folks who don’t consider themselves “centrists.” 
How is “Conserv” different from “Rep”?
In 1989 – the year I turned 18 – I registered as an Independent. I tend to lean liberal, but I have enough conservative viewpoints that I continue to call myself “middle of the road.” I have all of 4 elections under my belt; I voted Democrat in each of them.
There are many races where there is a different persone running in each, also when a person is running in both I will usually tend to vote for them under the Cons. line over the Rep line to let them know where their vote is comming from.
How do you have a “centrist” opinion on, say, the death penalty? I oppose it. Is that centrist? I don’t think so; a majority of people favor it. But is supoprt for the death penalty deeply-enough rooted that THAT can be called centrist?
Kanicbird: Gotcha.
Bricker, I speak for at least myself when I say: huh? 
I have some liberal views and some conservative views, so when forced to pigeonhole myself I go with “independent” or “centrist.” What does my specific position on any one issue have to do with it?
Oh yeah, I meant to ask this the first time around:
Out of curiosity, how do you define it?
I think most positions have more shades of grey than the death penalty. It’s the cumulative effect of the positions.
Unfortunately, I think that means that “centrists” often don’t have much in common, and have a tough time working together because of it.
Whenever we do the political compass thing (I never remember the exact #s so I do it over) I always come out just right or left of center. Like .25 or -.25 from the center, which is what happens if you loath big government, big business and religion-as-politics all three. Being the case no political party is a perfect match for me. Despite being greener than I like I’d probably vote Liberitarian if I thought they had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning big, but at the moment they don’t, so I vote about 80% Republican, 20% Democrat because that’s about the % I agree with each party’s platform. Interestingly, I don’t think I’ve voted for a Republican governor yet for some reason.
Guess I’m one, although I usually vote Democratic–of course, having spent my entire life in either Boston or New York, there’s usually just Dems and the American equivalent of Lord Ha-ha on the ballots I’ve seen (aside from a bunch of Repub Mayors and Governors that are to the left of any others in their party since Nelson Rockefeller died).
I don’t.
The way I most frequently hear it used, however, is “Centrist is whatever my views are.” 
First of all, I’ve only voted in one general election, so what I state will be skewed as a result.
Nevertheless, this is what I do:
As a DTS (Declines-To-State), I am entitled to vote in any primary I wish, but I have to stick to that primary. I vote in the one where the political action is (Last year in my district, that was the Republican primary), where I try to vote for the most centrist candidates, or, that failing, the ones I regard as most qualified.
In the general election, my vote depends on several things. First of all, I try to look for moderates, but, sadly, have difficulty finding them. In races involving incumbents, my vote is determined by how good a job I feel the incumbents are doing. If I approve of the incumbents, I vote for them, elsewise I vote against them. (That is how I ended up being one of the few Kerry-Jones voters in my state.) Finally, if only one serious candidate is running, I vote for that candidate, unless I strongly disapproave, in which case I use the write-in part of the ballot.
In 2004, I voted for 3 Reps and 2 Dems, for a 60%-40% split. Next year, I have seven or eight more races to vote on, and I’m not sure yet how I’ll split.
Well, I’ve only voted in a couple of elections so far, but I voted Democrat in the Presidential election last year. (Fairly reluctantly, I might add. But I didn’t think Kerry’d win, in any case.)
I do vote Democrat for congress and the senate, mostly because I figure that they’re fairly benign—(i.e. too ineffectual to do pull off anything really dumb, at the cost of being too ineffectual to actually do anything constructive)—compared to conservatives.
When the California governor’s recall election came up, I voted for the independant Trek “Thunder” Kelly (aka “The Blue Guy”). Reason? I disagreed with Schwarzenegger on economic issues, but I thought all the Democrats were all ineffectual weenies. So, figuring that I’d end up getting screwed any way I went, I just voted for the guy who’s policies I DID support, but who didn’t really have a snowball’s chance of getting elected.
As a Centrist, I think the area where I REALLY get to “shine” is in voting for props and state laws. If none of the major candidates are willing or able to support my wildly disparate views,* at least I can “speak for myself,” a little.
*As Misnomer says, I have some views that are “conservative,” and some that are “liberal.” I’d probably be a “New-Deal Libertarian” or a “Laissez-Faire Fascist,” or something.
I don’t consider myself a centrist, in American politics anyway. I’d probably be on the left in European or Canadian politics too, though not as much. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not being middle of the road. It’s radicals (on both sides of the debate) that have really changed things, not the people in the center who just want to make all the fighting go away.
I’m a little amazed that kanicbird is calling himself a centrist.
I kind of resent that. There can be more to being a Centrist than “just wanting all the fighting to go away.” Some of us could be called “Centrists” but not “Moderates”—We have as strong and passionate beliefs as people on either political wing, we just have different views, or simply hold beliefs in combinations that the hardliners in either wing would feel incompatible in their ideology. One doesn’t have to throw in with the radical left or right to want and strive for change in the world. And, frankly, I’d find it hard to believe that politics, of all the institutions that humanity has created, could be boiled down to a simple two-side debate!
What Ranchoth said. :dubious:
He isn’t:
Okay, yeah, maybe I jumped the gun. I just sorta resent so-called “centrists” who cut down my politics because I don’t compromise on issues that are important to me. For instance, abortion: “Well, don’t you think some abortion is murder? Just a little, little bit?” No, sorry, and I’m not going to say I do just to appease someone. That’s true about the non-two-sidedness, though. I also feel alienated from many people on the left because of a few of my beliefs (strong isolationism, the right to own handguns), and juggling the issues I feel most strongly about so I can align myself with people who think similarly can be a daunting task. The problem is, I feel really strongly about all my beliefs, which makes it hard for me to debate with people who only feel lukewarm about the issue. The automatic association I have with the word “centrist” is wishy-washyness, and maybe that’s not totally accurate but that’s my perception.
Grr… I need to find some really radically political people in real life so I don’t feel so ignored by the non-political people I know. Not that politics is everything, but still…
What makes you think everything is so polarized? My father, one of the best known lobbyists in Oklahoma (not exactly a huge arena but he does some work in D.C., too) often repeats an old political saw that evolved from American football:
The best politics is almost always played between the 40-yard lines. Most good^H^H^H^H smart politicians are well aware of this.
Take the current Republican administration, and put me 100% in opposition.
Republicans would consider me a pinko-commie-queer-liberal.
Democrats would consider me the bastard son of Howard Dean.
Europeans would consider me as centrist.
As stated above I don’t. I just gave my voting stats in the spirit of I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.