In my previous diary, "Nate Silver Redux", I wrote about a "Composite Index" of the long-term national spending items on the General Social Survey underlying Obama's "progressive" policies as identified by Nate Silver:
The Composite Index
If we combine all of the above questions that were asked of the same people (split samples were used, so we can't include all the tables), we have seven spending items we can combine with a distribution of support that looks like this:
Spending Composite Index--Seven Items
Spending?
Progress- ives
Center- Left
Center
Center- Right
Conserv- ative
1: "Too Little"
87.3
83.9
71.8
69.2
50.0
2: "About Right"
8.7
9.0
15.5
16.6
15.2
3: "Too Much"
4.0
7.4
12.4
14.0
34.8
4: Lib Index
95.6
91.9
85.2
83.1
59.0
5: #1 + #2
96.0
93.0
87.3
85.8
65.2
Change in #4
--
3.6
6.7
2.1
24.2
Change in #5
--
3.0
5.7
1.5
20.6
What we see first in this table is a relatively slow gradation from progressive to center-right, followed by a sharp drop off among conservatives. The liberalism index only declines 12.5 points from progressive to center-right, but then plunges 24.1-almost twice as much-from center-right to conservative. The drop-off in total support (#1 +#2) is smaller, but the ratio is greater: a 10.2 point drop from progressive to center-right, followed by a 20.6 point drop (more than twice as much) from center-right to conservative. By both measures, conservatives are outliers.
But there's an interesting additional twist to this story....
As it turns out, the attitudes of all people across the spectrum combined together turn out to be incredibly close to those of the center-right, which could be used to justify calling us a "center-right" nation:
Spending Composite Index--Seven Items
Spending?
Progress- ives
Center- Left
Center
Center- Right
Conserv- ative
ALL
1: "Too Little"
87.3
83.9
71.8
69.2
50.0
69.4
2: "About Right"
8.7
9.0
15.5
16.6
15.2
14.0
3: "Too Much"
4.0
7.4
12.4
14.0
34.8
16.6
4: Lib Index
95.6
91.9
85.2
83.1
59.0
80.7
5: #1 + #2
96.0
93.0
87.3
85.8
65.2
83.4
Change in #4
--
3.6
6.7
2.1
24.2
--
Change in #5
--
3.0
5.7
1.5
20.6
--
There are just two problems with this, however.
First is the reason why this result comes about: because there's not that big of a difference between center-right and center-left--or even progressive, for that matter, compared to the difference between center-right and conservative. Center-right is actually part of a broad consensus from progressive to center-right, while conservatives alone are the outliers.
Second is the fact that even conservatives as a whole take an objectively liberal position--saying that there's not enough spending on these issue areas, whereas movement/Versailles conservatives would say that it's a bad thing to be spending anything at all.
Thus, even when we find some evidence that could support the "center-right nation" meme, it turns out that the meaning of saying that is far different, if not outright contradictory to what the Versailles talking heads mean by it.
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