Centerfield

Where Centrists Seem to Stand

I looked over the Pew Center study I linked to below (Something to chew on) more closely. Suppose independent/unaffiliated voters are a rough proxy for centrists. Where do we stand? No big surprise: in the middle. But in some cases we lean more one way than the other. Here are a few conclusions I made using the above-stated proxy, and reading between the lines:

If independents are a good proxy for centrists:

On foreign policy, centrists lean more toward the democratic view that stresses the importance of diplomacy, and are much less willing than GOP supporters to agree that they'd fight for our country even if they thought we were wrong. Centrists acknowledge that use of US force abroad may foster terrorism. But they align with the GOP in stressing support for national interests over pleasing allies.

Centrists lean democratic in supporting explicit extension of civil rights to homosexuals.

Centrists have historically agreed with the GOP that government is usually wasteful and inefficient. However. Democrats have come to agree with this more, while both centrists and the GOP are not as widely convinced of this as they used to be. With the transition in the government from democratic control to GOP control, 3/4 of centrists have been stable in thinking that elected federal officials quickly lose touch with their constituency. Unsurprisingly, democrats are now more convinced of this, and the GOP less convinced.

On social policy, centrists are more likely to agree with democrats that poor people have it tough and deserve more help. However, on the issue of providing this help even if gov't debt is required, they are about smack in the middle between democrats and the GOP: More likely to support borrowing to fund perceived necessities than the GOP is, but not nearly as likely to support this as democrats are.

On the issue of polarization, centrists perceive more of it than the GOP, less than the democrats. All groups perceive more division in the country as a whole than they do among people they know. Centrists are slightly less likely than either the GOP or democrats to attribute the division to foreign policy, but it's still the number one choice among centrists.

These stats match my take on centrists as a group. More socially liberal than the GOP, more fiscally conservative than democrats. More hawkish than democrats on foreign policy, but realistic enough to stress the importance of diplomacy moreso than the GOP.

Summary of party ID demographics:

Few surprises here. Men are more likely to vote gop, women democratic. White people are a little bit more likely to vote GOP, minorities are MUCH more likely to vote democratic. There's a small correlation between education level and party ID. People with less than high school ed or only HS ed prefer democrats. With more ed, there's a pretty even split. On religion, catholics split evenly between parties. Protestants and evangelicals are strongly GOP, jews and "no religion" strongly democratic. On incomes, people who make 50k or less are more likely to be democrats, but after that more likely to be GOP.

Posted by Brian Keegan at February 22, 2005 12:27 PM