Real Clear Politics analyst and all-purpose debunker of conventional wisdom, David Paul Kuhn highlights a Pew Center study on the American electorate:
“The study also underlines a common mistake in political analysis: independent is not a synonym for moderate. The ranks of independents have increased in recent years. Pew notes what's often overlooked. Many non-aligned voters still hold some highly ideological views. "But they combine these views in ways that defy liberal or conservative orthodoxy," Pew reports.”
This echoes what I said in my last post about the Canadian ‘moderate’ voter:
“As I explained in this post, the moderate voter in the middle is not somebody whose philosophical philosophy lies in the statistical midpoint of politics space. Rather, he is simply an apathetic voter who doesn’t care about politics at all. What political scientists like Flanagan see as a preference for moderation is really just a sensible desire to not rock the boat when things are doing OK.”
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