Friday, March 4, 2011

How Conservative is the United States? Very, according to the Gallup Organization.************************ The top 10 rankings make clear that conservative identification is much more common than liberal identification, with each of the top 10 conservative states at or above 45% identification and only the District of Columbia exceeding 31% liberal identification. In the nation as a whole, Americans are about twice as likely to identify as conservative as they are to identify as liberal, a pattern that has persisted for many years. Americans are also more likely to say they are conservative than moderate. Not surprisingly, then, conservatives outnumber liberals in every U.S. state. Only in the District of Columbia do liberal identifiers exceed conservative identifiers (41% to 18%). Vermont (30.7% conservative to 30.5% liberal), Rhode Island (29.9% to 29.3%), and Massachusetts (29.9% to 28.0%) have the closest state-level division between conservatives and liberals. (The full data on ideology by state can be found on page 2 of this report.) The most conservative states are typically in the South and West. The least conservative states are in the Eastern part of the country and on the West Coast. http://www.gallup.com/poll/146348/Mississippi-Rates-Conservative-State.aspx

21 comments:

  1. very true Doug for the ones of us who were alive during the Eisenhower Administration or even Nixon can easily see the rightward trend
    the question I keep asking is why? We all saw very well from 2000-2008 what happens when right wingers have unfettered control of our government.

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  2. I wonder about that as well Mike. The results of the last election really have me baffled--how far right can parts of this this country keep heading I wonder some times?

    I wish I had an answer. My best guess is that people can get very mad at government but will look the other way when businesses screw the public over. I guess it pays to have good lobbyists in Washington and loose campaign financing laws. But I still don't get it.

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  3. From this side I did do Gallop. As you know Doug.

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  4. it's my hopes that this WI deal will expose the leaders of the right for what they are...wealthy,greedy,unsympathetic people who care only about corporate profits and nothing
    about the middle class in this country.

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  5. Doug, the scary thing - the genuinely scary, Fascist, military-dictatorship sort of thing - is that these people are winning.

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  6. Vermont conservative?! Who did they poll? Not Vermonters that I know of.

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  7. I'm still trying to work out whether New England is the best place to start the revolution Doug....or the worst?

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  8. Did you work for the polling organization Jack?

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  9. Let's hope so Mike....I do think there's going to be a backlash against Scott Walker and at least some of these GOp legislators. They tried to insulate themslves from opposition by the police and fire unions but that's being seen asa divide and conquer strategy by more people. And the polls suppoort collective bargaining.

    How powerful all this will be be in the "Badgr State" and other places with GOP govs like Kasich in Ohio with the next election in 2012, well ,that's another story.

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  10. Yes how conservative can Vermont be with Bernie Sanders as a long-time favorite with voters?

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  11. I believe you're right, Ingognitte.

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  12. I recall at least one revolution in American history that changed a few things beginning in the greater Boston area, AA.

    Anyway the numbers baffle me in some of these states...I confess I haven't felt this estranged from the views of so many voters in other parts of America in thirty years.

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  13. As indicated in the comments polls are only reflective of those that are questioned. No one asked me. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the country seems conservative to me right now - and I guess we are getting what they voted for now unfortunately. I often think I should move.

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  14. Keep in mind, when it comes to government the lines blur, and they all seem the same to me… so when I see the word “Conservative” I define it in black and white terms off the word! When I think “Conservative”, I think spending on only what we can afford, not being wasteful, and so forth… which America is NOT!!! We have been trained from birth to spend, and charge, and our credit scores are off money we don’t own!!! So how on earth are we conservative in the definition of the word?

    I learned when life knocked us on our rears the reality of life, and started to care less if I kept up with the “Jones”, and material things we didn’t want a week after buying whatever “it” was, and than asking… is this a need or a want… If it is a “want”, will it actually make me happy?

    And we elect those that government choose for us to vote between! I can’t be the only one that sees it for what it is… we become used to “choosing the lesser of two evils”, and fail to see that we know nothing, until after a person is elected, about them! So does it truly matter what “Bobble-head” we stick there to look at in office?

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  15. Mark Twain said it best "there are lies, dam lies and statistics". Polls can be interpreted in many ways. I always get a chuckle from the "Tea Party" conservatives. The men who actually partook in the"Tea Party" were anything but conservative. The United States was not formed by a mass acting as individuals but individuals acting in mass. If conservatives were the prevailing force in the 1700's were would all be tea drinking, warm beer left side road driving queen bowing members on the United Kingdom. What we have here is a bunch of self gratifying individuals who are upset there team did not win last time.

    With that said I am leaving before I get a tomato thrown in my direction

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  16. I think some of these tea-partiers may have finally over played their hand, Mary Ellen. Maybe.

    But I won't pretend I haven't thought of leaving at times myself.

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  17. Two choices doesn't make for much of a democracy does it, Beverly. I agree with you that conservatives seem to defy their own principles--at least the politicians are.

    What our leaders don't seem to appreciate is that this thing called partisanship is not a game--it is something that hurts people in their time of greatest need. Yet they cling to their philosophies of political gamesmanship and fail to watch out for the average constituent.

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  18. A very good point, Fred. I think a lot of these "patriots"--many of whom have never heard a shot fired in anger--would have been good little Tories back in the 1770's.

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  19. Never in my life although, now and then I did utilize static groups within what the market was for center that we were
    building. Aside from that I have never worked not used them till I found this. Yet America is conservative. So be it.

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