The votes are there but the politicians are MIA.
"The Battleground Poll website, along with the raw data, is “Republican Strategic Analysis” and “Democratic Strategic Analysis.” There are few polls that are bipartisan. No other polling organization asks the same questions year after year, none that reveal the internals of their poll results so completely, and none ask anything like Question D3 in every survey. What is Question D3 and what were the results to Question D3 in the August 20, 2008 Battleground Poll? It is this:
“When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be…
Very conservative
Somewhat conservative
MODERATE
Somewhat liberal
Very liberal
UNSURE/REFUSED”
In August 2008, Americans answered that question this way: (1) 20% of Americans considered themselves to be very conservative; (2) 40% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat conservative; (3) 2% of Americans considered themselves to be moderate; (4) 27% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat liberal; (5) 9% of Americans considered themselves to be very liberal; and (6) 3% of Americans did not know or refused to answer.
Sixty percent of Americans considered themselves conservative.
Look at the thirteen Battleground Poll results over the last six years, and how do Americans answer that very question? Here are the percentages of Americans in those polls who call themselves “conservative” since June 2002: 59% (June 2002 poll), 59% (September 2003 poll), 61% (April 2004 poll), 59% (June 2004 poll), 60% (September 2004 poll), 61% (October 2005 poll), 59% (March 2006), 61% (October 2006), 59% (January 2007), 63% (July 2007), 58% (December 2007), 63% (May 2008), and now 60% (August 2008.)
The percentage of Americans who define themselves as “somewhat liberal” or “very liberal” has always been puny. In thirteen straight polls, this percentage has never been higher than 38% (June 2004) and it has usually been much lower. The gap between self-defined conservatives and self-defined liberals has been as high as thirty percentage points and as low as twenty-one percentage points. What does that translate into in electoral politics? If conservative presidential candidates simply got all the conservative votes - if virtually all moderate voters, uncommitted voters, and liberal voters went for the liberal candidate - then the conservative candidates would win a landslide bigger than Ronald Reagan in 1988. Have you ever wondered why liberals like Obama never call themselves liberals? Maybe their advisers have read the Battleground Poll internals."
The Republican Party, simply, has alienated enough conservatives, who actually vote, because since 1998 they governed no differently than the democrats.
Many conservatives, long ago, recognized there is no hope of ever getting this government back under control by the Constitution.
That presents two choices; violent and bloody revolution or to just simply bide our time until the government collapes under its own weight, which is inevitable. Believe me, as a Southerner, it will be much easier to clean up the localized mess in Washington, than to have to bury 100's of thousands and rebuild a destroyed Republic.
There is a third but unlikely choice. If 38 states finally get sick enough of Washington's usurpation of powers, they can simply hold a convention and outlaw the current government and establish a new one along with a few new rules for government to follow that would prevent it from becoming as corrupt as the first.
Apparently, quite a few conservatives voted for Obama in hopes of speeding up the inevitable collapse of the government.
Remember, Obama won with 52.9% of the popular vote with the biggest turnout in recent memory, but the fact remains only 61.7% of all those of voting age actually voted. Most of that 38.3% who didn't vote were conservatives who couldn't bring themselves to vote for another "moderate". If Republican activists had actually offered a conservative, Obama would have been swept away in the conservative tsunami.
Conservatives don't need to appeal to liberal voters. There just simply aren't enough of them to beat a true conservative. Republicans squandered a golden opportunity to set the Republic on a true course but by governeing from a center left stance, lost the base.
