My own opinion on this, BoPo, is that this country is fundamentally neither. It just kind of runs hot and cold based on external events (wars, terrorist attacks, cultural stuff) and candidates. A candidate will get elected from either side and then overstay his welcome by doing something either too stupid or too evil or too corrupt to ignore and then a candidte will be elected from the other side. If anything I think this country is inherently contraraian, on a cultural level I think we're generally trained to distrust whoever's in power regardless of politics.

Just one theory, and I'm probably wrong.

(I do realize that there a hardcore devotees on both sides of the political fence who pore over issues and articles and stuff, but my personal experience is that those people aren't the majority of the electorate)

(and FWIW, I think we're about to swing to the left again, since I get the feeling that 1: most Americans are sick of the war, and 2: they also don't much care for religious fanatics)

Thank you BP, it looks very interesting.

"Progressive" (and conservative) are a little bit like inflation. You have always to adjust for the shifting paradigms. What was progressive in several issues 10,20,50 years ago, is the norm today -if not conservative. If you in a sense normalize for this --which is a hard thing to do, I'll admit-- then you might get different answer.

Had you asked me off hand, I would say, the entire world has become more conservative, in absolute terms. So I guess I am the "conventional wisdom" and I really want to see where they base their reasoning.

(and FWIW, I think we're about to swing to the left again, since I get the feeling that 1: most Americans are sick of the war, and 2: they also don't much care for religious fanatics)

That's my feeling, too, jon. I won't be able to read this report till tonight at the earliest to see if they take into account the whole "pendulum" idea.

Interesting. They present a lot of disparate polls all together - it's a little difficult to see the "pendulum" thing over their time period, which was usually 1-2 decades. The gist of their argument is that, while voters identify as "conservative" and say that "moral values" are important to them, the voter's idea of "moral values" are different than the pundits or conservatives. Voters care more about equality, fairness, and sharing ("3rd grade moral values") than about hot-button issues like abortion or Terri Schavio.

Exactly muddgirl. This is what I thought too after reading it, well more like looking at the diagrams. It seems to me that their metrics (ie the questions they pose as indicative of the level of progressiveness) are not all that hot anymore.
I mean, concerned about quality of drinking water? Besides some key issues are flat lines, no change. Also, I did not see anywhere discussion of error margins and um, representativeness of the sample. But maybe I missed it.

Maybe later I want to look up the ppl who did this research...

And in the end, does it matter? The entire world votes more conservatively in all those issues despite what they say in the poll. Why is that?

awesome, BoringPostcards, thanks!

Conventional wisdom says that the American public is fundamentally conservative - hostile to government, in favor of unregulated markets, at peace with inequality, wanting a foreign policy based on the projection of military power, and traditional in its social values.

Having spent thirty-six years of my life among Americans, I beleive that American people, as opposed to some journalistic abstractions called "the public" and "conventional wisdom" tend to:

--voice hostility towards Big Gummint, but have no reservations about living off the federal dime if the opportunity presents itself.

--sing the praises of the free market until the invisible hand whups them upside the head and sends their jobs to Shanghai Correctional Facility #46

--piss and moan about inequality but not do a damn thing about said inequality.

--want an aggressive foreign policy until that foreign policy necessitates a draft.

--preach traditional values for everyone else but do some mighty freaky shit behind closed doors.

American people want to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, Americans are human.