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The Republicans have to be the most right wing of any major national party in the west and they get 45%+ of the vote at all times. A lot of people discount the level of extremism in the GOP, they'd never control any majority anywhere else.
When you account for that and the relative conservativeness of the Democratic Party, it is no stretch at all to say that 40% of the populace is solidly conservative. Where I think there is some label flight is on our end with "liberal" becoming one of the dirtiest words in the American lexicon. I suspect liberals make up larger segment than is being stated but there is a real problem that the conservatives are much more monolithic than we can ever be and that mass also keeps us tacked to the middle in order to pick up as many of the middle as we can.
Denying that there are too many Right to Reich Wingers isn't constructive. Look at the GOP, they scarcely have any moderates at all and still have easily enough of a block to obstruct effectively not only nationally but in more liberal states as well. Democrats need such wide segments of the population that we have quite a few that would be as closer to the right than the center much less the left but they have to try to sell Tom Ridge and McCain as lefties and would just as well run them out of the party as elect them.
I'd also say in most of the country that anyone reading these words is in the liberal 10% of all they know, and that number is being conservative. The good thing is it is starting to get better, in 1992 Clinton could pretty much only win by having the good fortune to have a lot of the Libertarian types split off to Perot because it was probably like 55-60 percent conservative versus 35-40 now. Reaganisim is being defeated but we must be relentless.
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