That's the definition of left/right.

Liberal isn't the same as left. Conservative isn't the same as right.

Liberals believe in liberty even for the rich and powerful. (We don't think the liberty of the rich and powerful is usually in any danger, but in principle we're for it.) One can seek to conserve a traditional power structure that includes some protections of some liberty. (Traditional power structures are normally mostly about advancing the interests of those who have been in power, regardless of the effect on anyone's liberty. But where protection for liberty has been traditional, the conservative thing to do is to conserve it.)

Of course, conservatives are well-nigh extinct in this country. We're overrun with right-wing radicals, in whom Edmund Burke wouldn't see much to distinguish them from the left-wing radicals of revolutionary France.

depends which problem you mean. the economic divide between union leadership and the rank and file does make them part of some problems. however, removing a union entirely or stripping it of its core functions, as wisconsin's governor and right to work (right to fire) laws try to do, creates bigger problems than it solves.

What center? What can "center" mean, if almost everyone is supposedly leaning (whatever that means) to the right of it?

Are you saying that the center of the distribution people's actual positions (by whatever statistical measure of central tendency, on whatever criteria of "left/right") is to the right of where people imagine the center of others' opinions to be?

That's plausible. The fringes tend toward laager mentality, imagining that their enemies run everything. And the fringe-of-the-fringe on the right has been utterly triumphant for thirty years. They've got a good thing going (from their point of view), and they're not going to risk undermining it by changing their style. There's some laager mentality on the left, too, but it's a much better fit with the right, and of course the far right really does control the ruling Party.

As I have always said..

Whereas Unions USED to be part of the solution, by and large they have, in there here and now, become part of the problem..

Michale.....

i was making a slippery slope argument about the employer's right to deny insurance coverage for birth control on religious grounds. if they can deny coverage for birth control, can't they also deny coverage for medication to treat STD's or HIV? if you engage in "immoral" behavior of your own volition, why should the rest of the insurance pool finance your mistake? where do you draw the distinction? just how many medical decisions are religiously oriented employers and their insurers allowed to usurp from their employees and their doctors?

CB,

i reject the entire argument on the grounds that the "left-right" continuum no longer holds much meaning. the main political divide in this country isn't between liberals and conservatives, it's between the regular humans who work for a living and the uber-rich with their government lackeys. both classes exist on the left and the right, and nowhere is this real divide evident than in the field of education. all the money on both sides of the political spectrum is lined up against teachers, and for the most part the unions only pretend to put up a fight.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/michelle-rhees-backers-in_n_1300146.html

Right of center. We've got self-described lefties, centerists and righties in this country, with centrists leaning either left or right.

"A USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans to rate their own ideology -- and the ideology of the eight major presidential candidates -- on a 5-point scale with 1 being very liberal and 5 being very conservative. Americans' mean score on this scale is 3.3, meaning the average American is slightly to the right of center ideologically . . . Overall, 42% of Americans in the Dec. 15-18 poll describe themselves as very conservative or conservative, 19% as very liberal or liberal, and 37% as moderate . . . A majority of Americans, 57%, perceive Obama to be liberal, with 23% describing his views as moderate and 15% as conservative....." http://www.gallup.com/poll/151814/Americans-Huntsman-Romney-Paul-Closest-Ideologically.aspx

And quite apologizing for every burp and fart committed by Americans...

Michale.....

Maybe 4 more years of Obama might not be so bad... :D

I mean think about it..

If a GOP president tried stuff like Obama has, he would be tarred and feathered and attacked unmercifully from the Left..

But, since it is a DEM president doing it, the Left just goes along with it without saying a word...

Now, if we could just get Obama to smarten up on Economic issues and not using the men and women who CREATED the problem to FIX the problem, he might just be an ideal president. :D

Michale.....

It's a great question... I think... :D I am a little confused..

Are you saying that health insurance companies should or should not be allowed to refuse certain kinds of services??

Or..

Are you saying that businesses should or should not be allowed to chose which plans they make available to their employees??

I am cornfused...

Michale....

If something leans, that means the top is farther that way than the bottom. So you're saying that the top of the US is to the right of the bottom?

Silliness aside, what do you take "leans right" to mean? In particular, right of what? It can't exactly be right of itself.

Hey, I tried to honestly self-examine how I picked the MDDOTW winners, since you asked. I didn't take offense at the question at all, it made me curious, so I answered it. Don't sweat it.

Chris1962 [17] -

You're going to have to be more specific. What day are you talking about? I think maybe there was a typo on the site which they've now fixed (?)... all I see is the "strong disapproval" number staying pretty much the same, around 40% or so.

joshua [18] -

Yep, should have given you credit, sorry for the omission. I was answering a flood of comments over at HP this weekend, and NOBODY had an answer for "why shouldn't businesses be allowed to refuse to buy health insurance for AIDS or even STDs?" It is an excellent question.

Chris1962 [21] -

Rasmussen, two elections ago, did oversample conservatives -- their poll numbers were around 3-5% too far Republican. But last election, they must have adjusted their sampling, because they were pretty close to where the election turned out. There's still a lot of people who remember the "two elections ago" standard, though. Just by way of explanation.

Michale [29] -

See today's column. I thought it was just you getting upset over this, until I watched the Sunday political shows.

Chris1962 [30] -

I would say gas prices, mostly. Look for a new Obama Poll Watch column, next Monday...

:-)

-CW

On any single-parameter measure of public opinion (i.e., how far left or right people are, by some criterion, whether numerical or only ordinal) the most relevant measure of the "center" is the median. Numerical measures can have any monotonic function applied to them, and they still describe the same real-world information, just on a different scale. Such changes of scale will alter the results of numerical measures of central tendency such as the arithmetic mean. In the absence of a sound reason for preferring one scale over another, we're left with the median as a meaningful criterion and numerical measures reflecting the arbitrary choice of scale.

If those on one side of median are included in a sub-population at a higher rate than those on the other, the median of the sub-population will be farther that direction than the median of the whole population.

The right has better GOTV. Therefore the median voter is to the right of the median citizen.

That is in no way altered by the fact that the median citizen of the US self-identifies far to the right of most other first-world countries, or far to the right of where they did in some recent decades.

In ALL the administrations prior to President Obama's, the Espionage Act has been used THREE times since 1917 (the year it was enacted) to prosecute federal workers who talk to reporters in a "whistle-blower" situation...

Since Obama has been President, it's been used TWICE as much to prosecute whistle blowers....

In almost a century (95 years), US Administrations have only prosecuted whistle-blowers 3 times...

The Obama Administration has done it SIX times in THREE years!!???

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/business/media/white-house-uses-espionage-act-to-pursue-leak-cases-media-equation.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper

That is EXCLUDING the Bradley Manning case... Manning, incidentally, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Price.. Go figger...

Are we seeing any red lines here????

Michale.....

"What is a 'ute'??"
-Fred Gwynne, MY COUSIN VINNY

:D

Gas prices? Iran? The ill-fated Afghanistan apology? All of the above?

Pretty much All Of The Above....

The President ALWAYS gets the blame for high gas prices.. The Left castigated Bush unmercifully over $1.68 a gallon gas...

Of course, NOW the Left says, "The President can't control the price of gas..."

Iran?? Obama looking pretty foolish on Iran. He blazed into office thinking HE could make things right, just by talking to Iran... Once again (as with Counter Terrorism) Obama finds out that Bush had it right....

Don't EVEN get me started on the Koran Apology??? You have to look at the psychology... Those who would be accepting of the US's apology are the ones who really don't give a rat's ass about the burning of the Koran...

The one's who are rioting and butchering innocent people are merely INFLAMED by the apology, as it validates their rage...

In other words, the people who the apology would have the most positive effect on are the people who really don't care... For the people who are burning and murdering, the apology just egged them on....

For a real smart person, Obama can be pretty stupid about some things..

"You are the dumbest smart person I have EVER met!!!"
-Will Smith, I ROBOT

Michale

The Right has better turnout, is all. The Dems have a decades-old problem with turning out two of its most important voting blocs: minorities and youths (or yutes, as cousin Vinny would say). And I don't know what your personal definisiton of "the actual center of public opinion" is, but the country leans Right, with conservatives outnumbering liberals, two-to-one (and outnumbering moderates, as well).

Meanwhile, it looks like Rasmussen caught and corrected the error. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history But O's down to 45% percent now. So what do we think this is owed to? Gas prices? Iran? The ill-fated Afghanistan apology? All of the above?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/27/obama-bows-to-mob/

..... Michael Goodwin says it best...

Perhaps Obama will find time to apologize to the families of the two murdered soldiers and to those of two more officers killed Saturday. Or are their lives less valuable than a few scraps of paper?

Apparently, President Obama thinks so... :(

Michale.....

The right does have better GOTV than the left, so elections and likely-voter polls both skew well to the right of the actual center of public opinion.

I think you're also correct that it's a matter of models, not samples. They sample each demographic group well enough to get good numbers to plug into the model, then the model puts the numbers together. So sampling more or fewer people one group or another will just get a more accurate or less accurate number for those groups, rather than biasing the results.

But my impression (I haven't really checked out the numbers) is that Rasmussen's likely-voter model comes out somewhat to the right of other likely-voter models and of election results.

If you know that only the last digit is changing, it's easy not to notice a typo in the first.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-kurdish-fighters-destroyed-iran-nuclear-facility-email-released-by-wikileaks-claims-1.415066

Looks like STRATFOR made the news again.. :D

Michale.....

The Lifestyle's reach is wide and varied...

That's why it's soo fun... :D

Michale.....

US readies for possibility of intervention without UN resolution, Asharq Al-Awsat reports, citing US military official; plan to include humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees on Turkey's border

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4194506,00.html

I think it's safe to say that President Obama has started more wars and military actions than all previous NOBEL Peace Prize winners combined...

Michale.....

I am SOOOOO glad that Obama has moved us past the idea that race is ohh sooo important.... :^/

Michale.....

From the too-much-information file... http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/renowned_physicist_hawking_regular_usOh44cqUIkishSkhXbdXI

They actually don't oversample. They're following a "likely voters" demographic model, is all, which calls for more conservative/right-leaners because they're the likely voters in this country. So there's always gonna be more of them represented in any properly conducted Likely Voters poll, just like there's always gonna be more left-leaners in a "registered voters" poll, since there are more registered Dems than Republicans.

But I agree that it could be nothing more than an anomaly — although, if that's the case, I don't why Rasmussen wouldn't have caught and checked it. It leapt right out at me, like "What the...?" But I guess tomorrow's poll will give an indication of what's up. And three days from now will surely tell the tale.

I knew that.. :D

Thanx for the correction...

Michale

Then we find that the head of MM has a security detail that carries illegal CCWs to protect the principle from "right wing snipers"

No it shouldn't. All meanings relating to "person #1" are spelled "principal", and in particular that's the spelling used for the person protected by a bodyguard.

For example, from Wikipedia, "In addition to these weapons, a bodyguard team may also have more specialist weapons to aid them in maintaining the safety of their principal". And from http://www.statewidetrainingacademy.com/Level_IV_PPO_Course.html, "A bodyguard is a person who protects someone (known as their principal) from personal assault, kidnapping, assassination, loss of confidential information, or other threats."

Look at the "strongly disapprove" number. It's cut in half, in one day. What the heck does that mean?

It's a typo. If you go to the "Daily Presidential Tracking Poll Analysis" link at the bottom of the page, it mentions 41% "strongly disapprove".

those numbers really are weird. the sudden drop in "strongly disapprove" makes very little sense. i'd guess there's something off about the sampling or methodology. rasmussen generally tends to over-sample conservatives, so i'd look to other polls to see if the results are mirrored elsewhere or just an aberration.

CW,

well-argued case. i also liked your last post, on the plate tectonics of the culture wars. little by little, social issues are moving to the left, in spite of the ongoing backlash. even dick cheney realizes it.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/cheney-reasserts-stance-on-gay-marriages/

as darth dick himself says, “I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone.” in the case of birth control, the backlash is so far behind the continental drift that even most republicans seem to now be backing away from the right to deny coverage based on the employer's religious beliefs. i like how you appropriated and expanded my point about HIV treatment, too.

~joshua

And you know what I find very curious about these results? Look at the "strongly disapprove" number. It's cut in half, in one day. What the heck does that mean?

That SHOULD read....

Then we find that the head of MM has a security detail that carries illegal CCWs to protect the principle from "right wing snipers"....

Don't know many school administrators who need a detail. :D

Michale.....

There SHOULD be...

For people with "principles" I mean...

Michale....

That's not what counts. If it were truly a matter of absolute moral imperative, we would at least be uncomfortable about it. But there's no tension at all between saying the rules ought to be changed, and playing to win under the rules you have.

If only. Certainly you shouldn't.

Thanx CW, for taking it in the manner it was intended...

Liz,
Is this really all you have to say about Chris's latest piece. Really?

Yea, pretty much.. When I don't comment it usually means I agree pretty much with the sentiments expressed..

Or else I am too lazy to comment. But that is rare... :D

CW,

The Citizens United/Obama super PAC thing did not (which may shock you) cause much consternation among Democrats.

That's kinda my point...

When the ruling was first made, it was like the END OF DAYS amongst Democrats **AND** here in the pages of CW.COM.. The ruling was roundly and VERY boisterously condemned here and in Dem circles..

There was talk of gloom and darkness and the "end of our democracy" and "corporate takeover of elections...

And what was my response???

"Ehh... If Democrats could make the ruling work for them, they would embrace it.."

.... or words to that effect..

Which is EXACTLY what happened. Democrats found they could make it work for them (well, not really... but I'll get to that in a moment :D), so all of the sudden, it wasn't any big deal...

How many Dem voters, after all, really wanted to see Obama fight the election with one hand tied behind his back?

Probably as many Dem voters who really DON'T want to see Gitmo closed or DON'T really want to NOT torture terrorists... :D

It's pretty much par for the course... Dems will scream and yell bloody murder about "A"....

Right up until they point that they realize it's to their advantage to EMBRACE "A"...

Then "A" becomes the be all end all of sweetness, goodness and light...

Like Media Matters who screams and yells about the evils of guns and gun ownership... Then we find that the head of MM has a security detail that carries illegal CCWs to protect the principal from "right wing snipers"....

Hypocrisy at it's finest....

Apparently, Obama's embrace of Citizens United didn't help much.. His "evil" (Obama's words, not mine)SuperPAC pulled in about $59K... This, compared to the hundreds of millions the GOP SuperPACs pulled in... :D

Obama would have done MUCH better if he had taken the moral high road...

Problem is, Obama can't FIND the moral high road anymore...

Michale.....

Good points. The "2 day waiting period to enter a strip club" thing just popped into my head while writing this screed, but the more I think about it the better it sounds as a way for Democrats to point out the ridiculousness of the Republican position.

Want to get a lap dance? Well, you'll have to wait the mandatory 48 hours, sir. Oh, and we'll have to give you an in-depth talk on the dangers of STDs, as well, before we allow you in the door.

Heh.

-CW

[Followup]

The Citizens United/Obama super PAC thing did not (which may shock you) cause much consternation among Democrats. How many Dem voters, after all, really wanted to see Obama fight the election with one hand tied behind his back?

I almost gave an Honorable Mention to Bill Maher this week, for throwing down a cool million to Obama's super PAC, but then couldn't quite do it in the end. Giving money isn't all that impressive, even when the amount is an impressive number.

-CW

Interesting observation. Here's the basic process: when a Democrat pisses me off, he or she goes to the top of the list. Now, this is filtered by what I hear and read in the media. The equation gets trickier when you consider the magnitude of the disappointment. Low-level folks who do monumentally stupid things sometimes get picked because of the sheer stupidity of their actions (or how much they enrage me). Higher ups don't have to do things that are truly heinous to get the award, because they are so high profile.

But here's an observation back at you: for the past few months, national-level Democrats have been remarkably cohesive. There haven't been any huge intra-party battles, over legislation or over any other issue. To put it another way, I haven't seen Joe Lieberman or Max Baucus on my teevee screen in quite a while. Heh.

This is an election year, after all, so maybe the party is pulling together more than usual. Also, Congress keeps taking months off, which leaves the pickings kinda thin.

It's a combination of things, in other words.

-CW

I have visions of Democratic super-majorities - all over the place - dancing in my head.

Obama's second term could be so phenomenal ...

:)

Is this really all you have to say about Chris's latest piece. Really?

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...

It would really put the Left in a quandary over his religion... :D

Michale.....

But have you noticed of late that your MIDOTW awards are usually High Up Federal Government Officials (HUFGOs) while your MDDOTW awards are always some podunk state or local Dem in BumFuq, Kentucky??

I don't even think that Obama's 180 on the HUGE "threat to democracy" and climbing into bed with the SCOTUS over Citizens United got a mention..

As I said, don't take this the wrong way. Far be it from me to comment on how you do your column...

"I run my unit how I run my unit. You want to investigate me, roll the dice and take your chances. I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous."
-Jack Nicholson, A FER GOOD MEN

:D

Just pointing that out.. :D

Michale.....

I particularly like your section about fighting back on their battlefield. I think we should hold hearings about geezer sex and viagra. After all, if sex is only for procreation then why should we be enabling older men to have sex when (most of) their wives are beyond the age to conceive? Maybe inability to have erections is God's gift to men -- who are we to interfere with this process?

Certainly men should not be allowed to use viagra unless there's a medically necessary reason that ends in pregnancy for ONLY their wives. And the decision should be made by a group of women, who are thoroughly briefed on the man's marital status, wife's age and health, etc.

Naturally we need to outlaw all prostitution and vigorously prosecute men who use prostitutes. We also need to limit any access to pornography to only married men who's wives are of child bearing age (and women of child-bearing age!). So we need access to everyone's computers and devices to track their activity...

I would love to see hearings on the Hill, by women only, about men and sex. Just so that, for once, the shoe WAS on the other foot. Because I am sick to death of women's sex lives being used for political gain by opportunists in Washington and being "prescribed" by medieval, repressed and repressive religious fanatics.

And I'm sick of the spectacle of holier-than-thou types like Santorum getting all sanctimonious about how religious he is, when the main thing he talks about is sex. (I think if the Catholic Church would end it's insane insistence on celibacy, their whole "sex is bad, women are evil" nonsense would fade away. These people are obsessed about other people's sex lives because they can't have their own.)

"You can't run a country by a book of religion.
Not by a lump or a heap or a smidgen."

-Frank Zappa, "Dumb All Over"

-CW