I agree. Considering the US public is 41% Conservative and 21% Liberal, that would be significant.
I started a poll on drillling for oil and the answers were way to the left of what the polls said for the US at that time.
Cite, please?
Wow. I wonder why the elections are so close?
Liberal states might count for more in the electoral college, possibly. Not to say that the 41%-21% thing is correct, just that it seems possible to be so and still make elections fairly even.
The board does lean left, but I find that if I tilt my monitor to the right I can get things to balance out nicely.
Hm, well I just went through some stats on the Wikipedia and (assuming I didn’t goof when running the calculator or taking down numbers in notepad) the red states have 29.25% of the US population and their electoral college vote counts for 29.7% of the vote. Blue states have 37.99% of the US population and their vote counts for 37.7% of the electoral college. So the blue states are getting downranked by 0.29% and the red states are gaining 0.45% versus a pure popular vote. Of course not every person in a blue/red state will vote their way, but it seems like the electoral vote and the population count are sufficiently linked that it wouldn’t make much difference.
Again, according to the Wikipedia, there are 72 million Democrats and 55 million Republicans, which is 42% to 32%. That’s a decent sized difference, but not as impressive as 41%-21% (and of course reversed in direction.) Those numbers are also pretty close to the blue/red state numbers, both about 3% higher.
The middle is bigger than most people think!
Yeah, I have that problem too.
Since I was quoted, I ought to chime in.
I retook the test. My scores are Economic Left/Right: 2.12,
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.46, which puts me moderately to the right and mildly libertarian. Not too inaccurate.
From that fairly centrist point of view, I made the comment that the board tilts to the left. I suggest that one go count the number of threads bitching about McCain/Palin/TightyRightys/whatever and then compare them to threads bitching about Obama/Biden/LooseyLeftys/whatever. Much more of the former.
I’ve been a registered Independent since about a year after I first started voting. I registered Republican at first, like my parents. The drawback is that you don’t get to vote in caucuses; big frakking deal.
I disagree with both Republicans and Democrats on major issues. On the whole, I find the Democrats to be a little less disgusting on a regular basis (especially in the last 8 years) but I wish that everyone recognized that one of the ways to keep things running well (if not necessarily smoothly) is — ironically enough — opposition.
The country has usually been in better shape when the President and Congress aren’t of the same party because it means that only the really important things everyone can agree on get done. If the Democrats were really and truly in opposition with the Republicans, Bush would have been shackled almost from the moment there was a Democratic majority in Congress. Therefore, both parties are culpable for the recent excesses of the Executive and both piss me off. The Republicans piss me off more just because of the obvious lying and hypocrisy, but I do save some blame for the Democrats for letting them get away with it too often. One positive thing I can say about the Republicans is that they don’t have a problem with active opposition of their political opposites.
I have taken the Political Compass test before and have MAJOR problems with the wording of the questions and the assumptions they make. My true views on many of the questions would be “none of the above,” as often neither an agreement or disagreement is accurate or even close to what I believe is correct. For what it’s worth, I’m at -1.88, -5.28 and would dispute that either figure represents my real views. I’m closer to moderate fiscally than they say I am, and socially my views are way more complex and mixed than they measure. You’d never guess that I’m a solid supporter of the Second Amendment from that score, or that I strongly dislike most welfare programs.