aTm wrote:Fascinating.
I think much of that is due to the fact that the GOP and Fox News has been very successful in making "liberal" a dirty word.
Being conservative is identified as being self reliant, responsible and a bit of country club, where liberal is dred lock hippies and tree huggers, immigrants and welfare queens
That identity was true in 2008 as well but when presented with a choice of a carpet bagger McCain tied to the old guard and a liberal minded Obama, they chose Obama.
To me the bottom line is, so many people are vested in the government dole in some way, whether its scared there is a terrorist declaring jihad in their backyard on them, dependency on social security, medicare or other forms of income stability, or a strong belief in the government involved in their social values, everyone has some socialist tendencies that when isolated and examined would in itself be considered liberal leaning, yet they claim they are conservatives because they aren't "all in" on a fictionalized view of liberalism. While that attitude allows the GOP to get their attention, they listen only as long as they keep promising them stuff. As soon as hard core conservative issues kick in they quietly reject them. This is true on even rather straight forward issues such as significant tax reduction. Americans want to feel good about saying they are conservative but will openly dismiss anyone less than a moderate as their candidate.
I call it the "whatever helps you sleep at night" conscience of the voter.
I like the stinky pinky but only up to the first knuckle, I do not want a GD thumb up there--I've told her multiple times and I always catch her when she tries to pull a fast one---it's my butthole for Chrissakes I'm gonna know--so cut out the BS.