by Scott Winship
Y’all ready for this? Another Data Day! (Admit it, when you read the first sentence that synthesizer-and-drum instrumental that they play at the baseball stadium between innings started playing in your head. And you kind of danced along.)
My vast legion of regular readers should know by now that I am dangerously obsessed with the distribution of liberals and conservatives in the U.S. The obvious first cut at this question is to look at polls that ask people how they identify. You should sit down if you’re not familiar with how these results turn out. Here is a representative set of findings:

• Adults, late 2004, based on my own analyses of the 2004 National Election Study: 35% liberal, 55% conservative (remainder are moderates, non-identifiers, or reported inconsistencies before and after the election)
• Adults, late 2004, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press: 19% liberal, 39% conservative (remainder are moderate)
• Voters, late 2004, based on my own analyses of the 2004 National Election Study: 33% liberal, 56% conservative
• Likely Voters, January 2006, Democracy Corps: 19% liberal, 36% conservative

My own analyses are different from the others in that I have two responses from each person – one before and one after the election – and because the NES tries to get as many people as possible to choose either liberal or conservative rather than moderate. Anyway, the bottom line is that when respondents can choose “moderate”, roughly twice as many people identify as conservative as call themselves liberal. If moderates are forced to choose, they split roughly evenly, leaving 55-60 percent more conservatives than liberals. And these statements hold whether one is looking at adults, voters, or likely voters.
OK, the response from those who don’t like these facts is invariably that a lot of people really are liberal, but the term has been made into a dirty word by conservatives. If you ask people about their policy preferences and values, liberals would be in the majority.
Of course, saying it doesn’t make it so, but this assertion could be true. To test it, I used the NES from 2004, first choosing questions from the survey related to values and values-laden issues; foreign policy and national security; economic and social policy; and fiscal policy.* Within each of these four domains, I created weights for each question based on how well it predicted the presidential vote. Then I categorized everyone as a liberal or conservative in each domain by seeing whether weighted liberal responses to the questions out-numbered weighted conservative responses. Finally, (de-glaze your eyes) I weighted the four liberal/conservative designations based on their predictive power and categorized everyone as an “operational” liberal or conservative.
Now the good stuff. Based on my weighting scheme, the country is evenly split between operational liberals and conservatives. Adults are conservative on foreign policy and national security (52 to 48) and values (62 to 38), but liberal on economic/social policy (57 to 43) and fiscal policy (60 to 40). Consistent with the idea that liberal is a stigmatized word, just 56 percent of operational liberals self-identified as liberal, while 30 percent self-identified as conservative. In contrast, 79 percent of operational conservatives said they were conservative.
I divided the electorate into five groups. The biggest group consists of self-identified conservatives who are also operationally conservative – 42 percent of the electorate. These folks are solidly conservative in all four policy domains, and solidly Republican. Self-identified liberals who are also operationally liberal constitute a smaller group – 27 percent of the electorate. They are the mirror image of their conservative counterparts.
Another 13 percent of voters say they are conservative but are operationally liberal. Forty-three percent say they are Democrats, while just 26 percent indicate they are Republican. Solid majorities voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. They are consistently liberal in the four policy domains, except that they are split down the middle on values. It’s unclear whether values trumps the other policy domains or whether these are the voters for whom liberal is a four-letter word.
Voters who say they are liberal but are operationally conservative amount to just 5 percent of the electorate. Most of these voters are independents. They gave Bush 49 percent of their vote in 2000, but 59 percent in 2004. Tellingly, they are conservative on foreign policy and national security, as well as on values. They split on economic and social policy and on fiscal policy.
Finally, 13 percent of voters do not consistently describe themselves as a liberal or a conservative. This is actually a diverse group. They lean slightly Democratic, but they gave Kerry a solid 59 percent of their vote. Over half are operational liberals. They split on foreign policy and national security, lean right on values, and lean left on economic and social policy and fiscal policy.
There’s much more I could write, which I’ll save for a future post. One point I will eventually expand on is that the fact that so many people identify as conservative even when they tend to prefer liberal policies may imply that they are voting on “character” rather than issues. The liberal/conservative gap in self-identified ideology means something. For now, I’ll just note a couple of take-home points for Democratic strategy.
First, consistent with conventional wisdom, attracting swing voters means emphasizing values and national security. These issues are crucial to improving performance among inconsistent identifiers and liberal-identifying conservatives. Values issues also appear key to keeping and improving performance among conservative-identifying liberals.
It is possible that an economic populist message would be effective among inconsistent identifiers, who appear primed for both economic and cultural populism. Populism doesn’t appear particularly likely to resonate among liberal-identifying conservatives, who became much more likely to support Bush between 2000 and 2004, during which time the al Qaida attacks seem to have pushed them toward Bush. Nor does it appear to be promising as a strategy aimed at conservative-identifying liberals who, after all, call themselves “conservative” mostly on the basis of their views on values issues.
Finally, increasing turnout could be successful, but I found that nonvoters had pretty much the same ideological distribution as voters did. So it wouldn’t necessarily yield a bumper crop of new Democratic votes.
*Space prevents me from going into details, but if you are interested in a memo summarizing my analyses and additional results, send an email to swinship-at-gmail.com and I will do my best to get it to you within a couple of weeks.

Nicholas Riccardi and Mark Z. Barabak illuminate the GOP’s immigration strategy dilemma in their article in today’s L.A.Times. The authors discuss the hard-liners vs. moderates internal conflict among Republicans and their efforts to avoid being viewed as Latino-bashers, while appearing tough on illegal immigration. They also provide revealing examples of how it’s playing out in different mid-term campaigns.

In Pennsylvania, Sen. Rick Santorum has launched an ad accusing his challenger of favoring amnesty for people in the country illegally and giving them “preference over American workers.” Rep. Bob Beauprez criticizes his Democratic opponent in the Colorado governor’s race for supporting state benefits for illegal immigrants. In the Chicago suburbs, congressional hopeful David McSweeney is attacking Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean on immigration — even though she voted in favor of the crackdown bill that passed the House in December.

Barabak and Riccardi note that part of the Republican hard-liners mid-term strategy is to demonize the more moderate Senate immigration legislation by branding it the “Kennedy-Reid” bill, even though GOP Senator John McCain is a primary co-sponsor. Not likely to work, as Jonathan Singer notes in his MyDD post on the LA Times piece:

If the Republicans believe that they can throw red meat to their nativist base while at the same time continue to court Hispanic voters, they are in for a rude surprise.
The Los Angeles Times might believe that Republicans can get away with talking out both sides of their mouths on immigration reform, but every time Republican politicians go out and bash immigrants in quasi-racist terminology they counteract the superficial Hispanic outreach pushed by Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove.

Despite the GOP spin machine, Democrats currently enjoy a double-digit lead on “handling of immigration issues,” favored by 34 percent of respondents in a L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll conducted 6/24-27, compared to 23 percent expressing more confidence in Republicans. Further, Ruy Teixeira’s Democratic Strategist article cites a Latino Coalition poll showing the Dems with “a stunning 61 percent to 21 percent lead over the GOP” among Hispanic registered voters.
For a more in-depth discussion of longer-range immigration politics, demographics and economic policy, read Roger Lowenstein’s “The Immigration Equation” in the NYT Sunday Magazine. Reuters has an interesting WaPo article on what is being done to increase the Latino vote by 3 million in ’08 over the 7.5 million Latino ballots cast in ’04. Reuters says 8 million “legal resident” Latinos now qualify for naturalization — 3 million in California alone.

by Scott Winship
Mark Schmitt recently took issue with this op-ed by James Carville and Mark Penn asserting Hillary Clinton’s electability in the 2008 presidential election. Criticizing them for their lack of any empirical case, Mark cites approvingly the Strategist’s philosophy of “facts, not factions”. Matt Yglesias followed with a piece examining Clinton’s performance in New York relative to Chuck Schumer, Al Gore, and John Kerry in arguing that she would be a weak candidate. Now Garance Franke-Ruta has linked to a new Gallup poll that sheds additional light on this question. So let’s look at some facts.
While Garance’s post revolves around the views of Democrats toward Senator Clinton, what really matters for the electability question is how independents view her. According to a recent ABC/Washington Post poll, 48 percent of indies have a favorable opinion of her, while 46 percent view her unfavorably. (The rest are unsure.) This is remarkably close to John Kerry’s 49-48 margin among independents in the 2004 election. So an initial conclusion is that with Clinton heading the Democratic ticket, we will be dealing with another nail-biter in 2008. (Of course, much depends on the Republican ticket.)
On the other hand, Clinton’s favorability among Republicans – 26 percent – is significantly larger than Kerry’s performance among Republicans (a whopping 6 percent). Presumably she would end up getting substantially less than a quarter of the Republican vote in 2008, but it may be that she can attract enough Republican women to improve on Kerry’s performance.
That said, when respondents get the chance to say they are undecided as to Clinton’s favorability, just 11 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of independents are favorable toward her while 62 percent and 37 percent view her unfavorably. So, much of her support is tenuous.
That means a big question is whether Clinton’s popularity would go up or down over the course of a primary and general election campaign. Of course there is the possibility that many independents and Republicans who view her favorably will ultimately decide they do not want to relive the battle between the Clintons and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Many of them may not approve of having Bill Clinton back in the White House, particularly as First Gentleman.
I suspect, however, that Republicans would shy away from the sorts of attacks unleashed against the Clintons in the 1990s. One has to believe that the losses they sustained in the 1998 elections taught them that it is possible to go too far. Indeed, Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings have fluctuated between 44 and 54 percent since the start of Bill’s second term…except during and after the Lewinsky scandal, when they jumped 8 points in the first days that it broke and remained at 59 percent through mid-1999 (when she revealed she was considering a Senate run). If the Republican nominee has had an extramarital affair, alluding to the Clintons’ marital dramas will prove risky too.
No, they will have plenty to work with without having to prime swing voters to remember the various Clinton scandals. For one, there is HillaryCare. With health care as a major campaign issue in 2008, I suspect that the Republicans would rather face Clinton than other Democrats (who will have their own health care plans and no baggage from 1994). But the Gallup poll Garance links to reveals a second promising front for Republicans.
Among independents, the most common reason given for disliking Clinton was, “Wavers too much on issues to her advantage/wishy-washy.” If the campaign began today, she would go into it with 12 percent of independents believing she’s Clintonesque and a flip-flopper. These are basically the same characterological flaws that Republicans used effectively in the past four Presidential elections. Twelve percent may not seem that high, but keep in mind that this is before the GOP slime machine kicks in. You can bet the 527 groups will be out in full force, if not Rove or his protégés.
Furthermore, Clinton will face strong pressure in the primaries to change her Iraq position and to move to the left generally. As Howard Dean’s candidacy did to Kerry, Russ Feingold’s will set Clinton up to be more effectively portrayed as a flip-flopper in the general election. Indeed, it may be worse for Clinton. She will have much more successfully portrayed herself as moderate going into the primaries (before she zigs) than Kerry did, and because the netroots are feeling far less accomodationist today than in 2003 (at least on Iraq), she will have at least as far to zag in the general election.
So is Clinton electable? Sure. Is it likely she’d be elected? Much less clear. The evidence above gives reason to think that with Clinton as the nominee, 2008 could be the third carbon-copy presidential election in a row for Democrats, which would leave them agonizingly short of victory again. But with the current 50/50 Nation, it’s impossible to say with much confidence what would actually happen.
Update: Regarding Mark’s main question as to whether Clinton is likely to attract strong support from women in general and married and non-Democratic women specifically, I’ve tabulated some evidence from the 2004 National Election Study. Women, but not men, rated Clinton higher than they did Kerry on a “thermometer” scale where 0 equals very cool feelings and 100 equals extreme warmth. The average for Clinton was 59, versus 54 for Kerry. Men rated both between 50 and 51. So Carville and Penn seem correct here. On the other hand, Clinton’s boost among married women was no larger than her boost among married men, and much smaller than among single women. Married women rated Clinton 53 and Kerry 50, compared with 48 and 46 for married men and 66 and 59 for single women. Among Republican women, there was no boost, and she was barely any more popular than among Republican men. The average score for Clinton was 31, compared with 32 for Kerry. The figures for Democratic women were 80 and 73; for Republican men, 28 and 29. Finally, Clinton averaged 63 among independent women, while Kerry averaged just 55. Among independent men, on the other hand, she averaged 52 to Kerry’s 54. So while there’s some evidence a Clinton presidency would energize independent women (including married independent women, which I don’t show here), there’s little to indicate that it would convert other married women or Republican women. Furthermore, these numbers would probably fall over the course of a campaign, given GOP smear tactics.

Former Assistant Secretary of State James P. Rubin has an interesting suggestion for Democratic strategists in his NYT op-ed “A War Democrats Can Win.” Rubin says:

Back in Washington last week, partisan warfare had erupted over a Democratic proposal to establish a timeline for withdrawing American forces from Iraq. Even though the top commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., was working on just such a plan, Republicans battered the Democrats as quitters, unwilling to hang tough in the fight against terrorism.
Next time, the Democrats should try a different strategy. Instead of calling for troop cuts in Iraq, they should call for transferring forces and resources from Iraq to Afghanistan.

It’s not a new idea, and it has been suggested from time to time by different Dem leaders in recent years. But making it a major, unifying theme just might provide a credible exit strategy for Democrats. Rubin argues further:

By forcing a debate on transferring American forces back to Afghanistan, the Democrats can avoid the trap of allowing Republicans to claim they are weak. They can argue that their proposal is not a withdrawal from the front, but rather a deployment to an equally important front where American leadership can make the difference in securing a long-term victory….If nothing else, such a debate would focus attention on the Bush administration’s failure to finish the job in Afghanistan.
Americans know that Iraq has become a drain on our resources and reputation, but they are wary of giving up. On the other hand, since the Sept. 11 attacks were planned in Afghanistan, public support for finally finishing off the Taliban and their allies in Al Qaeda can be sustained for a long time to come.

Rubin doesn’t explore the political fallout of different scenarios we might leave behind in Iraq. But the merits of Democratic candidates talking about transferring troops instead of withdrawing them deserve consideration.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding most of DeLay’s redistricting scam, WaPo‘s Charles Babington assesses the Democrats’ opportunity and willingness to pursue a more aggressive redistricting strategy of their own. Babington’s article, “Democrats Not Eager to Emulate Texas’s Redistricting,” says that the list of states where a stronger Dem reapportionment strategy is feasable is “remarkably short”:

Several states assign the redistricting task to commissions, shielding the process from partisan control. Some states, such as Texas, are controlled by Republicans. Many others have divided government, in which neither party controls both the governorship and the two legislative chambers, making blatantly partisan redistricting impossible. Finally, some Democratic-controlled states have already carved out all the Democratic-leaning House districts they can, leaving no room for gains.
The result, redistricting experts say, yields perhaps four states where Democrats conceivably could try a mid-decade gerrymander comparable to that of Texas’s: Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico and Louisiana. In each one, however, such a move seems unlikely because of factors that include racial politics, Democratic cautiousness and even a hurricane’s impact.

However, the balance of power in the states could change significantly in November if the Dems pick up a few key state legislatures and governorships, opening up fresh redistricting opportunities. (For a map depicting which states have both of their state legislatures controlled by the Dems or GOP, click here.) More disturbing is that the Democratic will to play redistricting hardball may not be there, according to Babington. He quotes DCCC chairman Rahm Emanuel describing the response to his efforts to get some pro-Democratic redistricting in the states: “I couldn’t get enough fellow Democrats to see the benefits of that.” Babington cites similar reluctance on the part of Democratic leaders in other states.
The SCOTUS decision serves notice that the rules of redistricting have changed. We can be sure only that the Republicans will not hesitate to ruthlessly exploit every possible chance to tweak reapportionment maps in their favor in the years ahead, and their Texas pick-ups could be replicated in several other states. If Democrats don’t respond with equal fervor, securing and retaining a stable majority of congress is unlikely.
For a comprehesive guide to the redistricting methods of the 50 states, click here, and then select states in the left-hand column.