Moderate Schizophrenia

Does the middle see themselves as center-right or center-left? According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, it’s both.

The poll found that 56% of voters feel that the average Democrat is more liberal than they are but only 46% find that the average Republican is to their right. That would indicate a closer relationship to Republican values than to Democrat values.

The same poll then asked whose agenda they found more extreme. 52% said that the Republican congressional agenda is too extreme while only 46% of respondents said the same of the Democrats’ plan for the country. That would indicate closer alignment with the left.

It’s not until the underlying demographic breakdown from the survey is analyzed that the reason for the confused overall result becomes obvious – well.. kinda.

61% of moderates said that the average Congressional Republican was more conservative than they while only 6% of moderates felt that Democrats were more liberal than they were.

On the question of whose agenda was considered extreme, 22% of moderates said that the Republican agenda is extreme while 45% of the moderate crowd responded that the Democrat agenda is extreme.

Among respondents that self-identified as moderates – their appears to be a pandemic of schizophrenia. How else can one explain to find Democrats’s agenda as extreme, but feel that Republicans are further away from them – unless moderates are saying that  they prefer an extreme liberal agenda.

This may be an interested election year indeed.