The National Election Pool exit poll of 17,836 randomly selected voters,
conducted by Edison-Mitofsky, shows how shaky the jargon of political
analysis can be. Twenty-two percent of those polled identified
themselves as "liberal," 34 percent as "conservative," 44 percent as
"moderate." Such numbers are cited by proponents of the "center-right
country" argument. But one in five of the self-styled conservatives
voted for Barack Obama, and one in 10 liberals voted for John McCain.
The moderates were overwhelmingly for Obama, by 60 percent to 39
percent. Those self-identifications obviously meant different things to
different people.

"There's a lot of contradictions in what people tell you," observed Neil
Newhouse, a Republican pollster. Added Samuel Popkin, a political
scientist at the University of California at San Diego, voters'
definitions of political terms are not rigid: "The Beltway notion and
the people's notion is very different."

(THE MEAT

*****Whatever the appropriate label, substantial majorities of the
voters of 2008 want the war in Iraq to end as soon as possible. Large
majorities favor affordable health insurance for everyone, a fairer
distribution of wealth and income, and higher taxes on the rich. They
want to preserve traditional Social Security. They want more effective
government regulation of the financial sector. On social issues, the
country that elected Obama is tolerant of homosexuality and legal
recognition of same-sex partnerships, less so of same-sex marriage. A
post-election survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a Democratic polling
firm, showed that 51 percent said "the government should do more to
solve problems."*****

But how much more? The same exit poll also asked which of two statements
respondents agreed with: "On health care, we need to act boldly to
address the problems" or "On health care, we need to act step-by-step to
address the problems." Forty-six percent agreed with the first
statement, but 50 percent endorsed the second.

Such flashes of native caution or conservatism are common. The same poll
offered another choice: "I'm more worried that we will fail to make the
investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy" or "I'm
more worried that we will go too far in increasing government spending
and will end up raising taxes to pay for it." Voters split 48 percent to
48 percent.

Popkin has a formulation that resolves the inconsistency: "We are
center-left on social issues and environment, and center-right on fiscal
issues." Yet we have run up huge deficits over the last three decades
and are about to add substantially to them -- another inconsistency.


(Part of an article in the Washington Post. 17,000+ surveyed...pretty
damned big sample.)