The Biggest Missing Story in PoliticsBy Bruce Walker

The Battleground Poll, the most respected and thorough of all public opinion polls, released its latest results on August 20^th.  Although many people read this poll for the data on voter preference in upcoming elections, for voter opinions about the two major political parties, for what things matter most to voters, I always zip past this data in the first fifteen pages of poll results and go straight to Question D3, which very quietly and totally ignored proclaims the biggest missing story in American politics and which is the only story, in the long run, that really matters.
I have been tracking Question D3 for a long time, since June 2002, in thirteen straight Battleground Poll results.  Americans respond to this question more consistently than to any other question in those thirteen Battleground Poll surveys.  People many change their opinions dramatically about Iraq or President Bush or drilling for oil, but not their answer to Question D3.  
The Battleground Poll is different.  It is bipartisan.  A Republican polling organization, the Terrance Group, and a Democrat polling organization, Lake Research Partners, collaborate in picking the questions, selecting the sample population, conducting the surveys, and analyzing the results.  The Battleground Poll website, along with the raw data, is "Republican Strategic Analysis" and "Democratic Strategic Analysis."  There are few polls that are bipartisan.  No other polling organization asks the same questions year after year, none that reveal the internals of their poll results so completely, and none ask anything like Question D3 in every survey.  What is Question D3 and what were the results to Question D3 in the August 20, 2008 Battleground Poll?  It is this:
"When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be...
Very conservative
Somewhat conservative
MODERATE
Somewhat liberal
Very liberal
UNSURE/REFUSED"
In August 2008, Americans answered that question this way:  (1) 20% of Americans considered themselves to be very conservative; (2) 40% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat conservative; (3) 2% of Americans considered themselves to be moderate; (4) 27% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat liberal; (5) 9% of Americans considered themselves to be very liberal; and (6) 3% of Americans did not know or refused to answer.
Sixty percent of Americans considered themselves conservative.  Does this mean that most Americans do not know what "conservative" means?  No:  The question specifically provides an out to people who are not sure about their ideology; it provides an out to people who want to be considered "moderate."  Americans reject those choices.  They overwhelmingly define themselves as "conservative." This is a huge political story - except that it is not "new" at all.   Look at the thirteen Battleground Poll results over the last six years,  and how do Americans answer that very question?  Here are the percentages of Americans in those polls who call themselves "conservative" since June 2002:  59% (June 2002 poll), 59% (September 2003 poll), 61% (April 2004 poll), 59% (June 2004 poll), 60% (September 2004 poll), 61% (October 2005 poll), 59% (March 2006), 61% (October 2006), 59% (January 2007), 63% (July 2007), 58% (December 2007), 63% (May 2008), and now 60% (August 2008.)
The percentage of Americans who define themselves as "somewhat liberal" or "very liberal" has always been puny.  In thirteen straight polls, this percentage has never been higher than 38% (June 2004) and it has usually been much lower.  The gap between self-defined conservatives and self-defined liberals has been as high as thirty percentage points and as low as twenty-one percentage points.  What does that translate into in electoral politics?  If conservative presidential candidates simply got all the conservative votes - if virtually all moderate voters, uncommitted voters, and liberal voters went for the liberal candidate - then the conservative candidates would win a landslide bigger than Ronald Reagan in 1988.  Have you ever wondered why liberals like Obama never call themselves liberals?  Maybe their advisers have read the Battleground Poll internals.  
Are these remarkable results skewed?  This has always been the argument, but it is a hopelessly flawed argument.  The poll results are incredibly consistent over time.  These results are the same when President Bush has poll numbers at rock bottom and when Republicans were facing electoral disaster, like in October 2006 when 61% of Americans called themselves conservatives.  The very consistency of these percentages is powerful evidence of their inherent validity.
If people did not know what conservative, liberal, and moderate meant, then the poll results to that question would bounce around over time and people would flock to define themselves as "moderate" or they would say "don't know."  When given four different options to the conservative label, respondents overwhelmingly chose to define themselves, instead, as conservatives.  
Do people feel pressured into calling themselves conservatives?  Think:  Hollywood regularly excoriates the image of conservatives; the mainstream media demonizes conservatives; schools teach that conservatives are narrow minded bigots; academia tries to hound independent conservative newspapers and organizations off campus.  It requires much more courage to define yourself as a conservative than any other label, particularly when the banal "moderate" answer is so easily grasped.  No:  These answers to Question D3 are real, profound, and great.  
Why, then, do other polls show Americans so different from conservatives?  The short answer is that other polls are scrupulously constructed to hide the tsunami of conservative opinion in America.  On abortion, for example, polls will report that Americans define themselves at least as much as "pro-choice" as they do "pro-life," but that is just not true.  The "pro-choice" advocates nationally oppose bans on partial birth abortion, oppose parental notification, and oppose counseling on abortion.  Led by men like Obama, the "pro-choice" position is, quite simply, that a woman always has a right to choose an abortion.
Polls do not show support for that at all.  Polls over the last few months give the following levels of support to making abortion always legal:  "always legal - 19%" (Quinnipiac Poll, July 2008); "legal in all cases - 19%" (Pew Poll, June 2008); "legal in all cases - 18%" (ABC / Washington Post Poll, June 2008).  While it is true that the percentage of Americans who want abortion illegal in all situations is almost exactly the same as those who want abortion legal in all cases, the overwhelming percentage of Americans want just what pro-life advocates want:  abortion generally available in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening health problems for the mother; abortion for minors regulated just like abortion for any major medical procedure for minors is regulated; and abortion on account of personal inconvenience more strictly regulated.  All of these polls showing Americans equally divided were crafted by people and by groups intent upon presenting a false impression of how Americans felt about abortion.
Polls on other issues are just as bad.  The CNN poll of June 2008 on gun control is a good example.  CNN asks people to interpret the Constitution, by reciting the text of the Second Amendment.  Then asks whether this text in the Bill of Rights was intended to provide for "a well regulated militia" or to preserve "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."  In other words, the question implies that the Second Amendment cannot preserve two rights, both of which are explicitly recited within the text of that amendment:  A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is specifically guaranteed as well.
Like everything that the Left does, from entertainment to higher education, the structure, the format, and the revealed results of information is conformed to present an image in which conservatives and their values are as invisible as blacks in the Antebellum South.  Even Leftists themselves believe this false picture.  Consider, in 1988, how many liberal Democrats did not believe that Reagan had won an overwhelming landslide because they, personally, knew of no one who voted for him.  Consider how blindsided the Left was by the overwhelming popularity of an unapologetic conservative like Rush Limbaugh.  Consider that Republicans walk about in a blue funk wondering where the next Reagan is, utterly forgetting that not only Leftists, but "moderate" Republicans in 1980 were labeling Reagan as far, far too conservative.  The Gipper, in fact, was comfortably in the middle of a huge American majority.  The extremists are that 9% of Americans who call themselves "very liberal."  
Conservatives are like those proverbial sailors becalmed off the coast of Brazil, dying of thirst, and wondering how they would survive until tomorrow.  When another ship passed asked the listless sailing ship if its crew needed help, the urgent call was for fresh water, to which the passing ship replied "Lift down your buckets into the sea.  You are in the mouth of the Amazon."  Fresh water was everywhere around the dehydrated men; they just did not know it.  Conservatives are not just a majority of Americans, but an utterly overwhelming majority of all Americans.  As soon as they grasp this huge fact, government and politics in America will be transformed.
Bruce Walker is the author of  Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and the recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

Click here: American Thinker: The Biggest Missing Story in Politics

[SIZE=12px][SIZE=14px][SIZE=12px][SIZE=12px][SIZE=12px][SIZE=14px][SIZE=12px][SIZE=12px]BEGIN TRANSCRIPT[SIZE=12px]RUSH: This is almost predictable. Every two years and every four years in a presidential election I go to the e-mail, and of course the libs start writing, "Is that all you got to say? You always say the same thing. You're just a broken record." Well, there's a reason.  Libs lose.  And this election is going to come down to what every other election comes down to, and that's turnout.  It's going to be what kind of grassroots organizations does McCain have versus Obama's.  Bruce Walker, writing at the AmericanThinker.com says the Battleground Poll and particularly question D3 is crucial to understand this country.  He says, "I always zip past this data in the first fifteen pages of poll results," from the Battleground Poll.  The Battleground poll, by the way, is the bipartisan poll, Ed Goeas on the Republican side, Celinda Lake on the Democrat side, and their questions never change.  They're consistent and it is a poll with a great track record.  

So Mr. Walker says he always zips through all the mundane polling data, goes straight to question D3, "which very quietly and totally ignored proclaims the biggest missing story in American politics and which is the only story, in the long run, that really matters. I have been tracking Question D3 for a long time, since June 2002, in thirteen straight Battleground Poll results.  Americans respond to this question more consistently than to any other question in those thirteen Battleground Poll surveys.  People may change their opinions dramatically about Iraq or President Bush or drilling for oil, but not their answer to Question D3.  The Battleground Poll is different.  It is bipartisan.  A Republican polling organization, the Tarrance Group, and a Democrat polling organization, Lake Research Partners, collaborate in picking the questions, selecting the sample population, conducting the surveys, and analyzing the results.  The Battleground Poll website, along with the raw data, is 'Republican Strategic Analysis' and 'Democratic Strategic Analysis.'  There are few polls that are bipartisan.  No other polling organization asks the same questions year after year, none that reveal the internals of their poll results so completely, and none ask anything like Question D3 in every survey.  What is Question D3 and what were the results to Question D3 in the August 20, 2008 Battleground Poll?  It is this:

'When thinking about politics and government, do you consider yourself to be… Very conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, somewhat liberal, very liberal, unsure/refused.  In August 2008, Americans answered that question this way:  (1) 20% of Americans considered themselves to be very conservative; (2) 40% of Americans considered themselves to be somewhat conservative--" For those of you in Rio Linda, that adds up to 60% who consider themselves conservative.  Two percent said they considered themselves to be moderate, the independents, the great moderates in American History.  Two percent of the American people consider themselves to be moderates, and yet we're told that they are 20% of the electorate.  Twenty-seven percent said they were somewhat liberal, and 9% said they were very liberal.  That's a total of 36% to 60.  Sixty percent conservative, 30% liberal.  Question D3, Battleground Poll, five days ago.  Three percent of Americans did not know or refused to answer.  

Now, as Mr. Walker writes here:  "Sixty percent of Americans considered themselves conservative.  Does this mean that most Americans do not know what 'conservative' means?  No:  The question specifically provides an out to people who are not sure about their ideology; it provides an out to people who want to be considered 'moderate.'"  If you don't know that you're conservative or liberal, you can always put moderate.  Americans reject the choice of moderate.  "They overwhelmingly define themselves as 'conservative.' This is a huge political story -- except that it is not 'new' at all. Look at the thirteen Battleground Poll results over the last six years, and how do Americans answer that very question?  Here are the percentages of Americans in those polls who call themselves 'conservative' since June 2002:  59% (June 2002 poll), 59% (September 2003 poll), 61% (April 2004 poll)."  It doesn't vary.  From 63 to 58% consider themselves conservative from 2002 on.  [SIZE=12px]"The percentage of Americans who define themselves as 'somewhat liberal' or 'very liberal' has always been puny.  In thirteen straight polls, this percentage has never been higher than 38% (June 2004) and it has usually been much lower.  The gap between self-defined conservatives and self-defined liberals has been as high as thirty percentage points and as low as twenty-one percentage points.  What does that translate into in electoral politics?  If conservative presidential candidates simply got all the conservative votes -- if virtually all moderate voters, uncommitted voters, and liberal voters went for the liberal candidate -- then the conservative candidates would win a landslide bigger than Ronald Reagan in 1988.  Have you ever wondered why liberals like Obama never call themselves liberals?" Why they want to be called conservatives?  "Maybe their advisers have read the Battleground Poll internals," to question D3.  

He goes on to say that these people in this poll are not pressured to answer in any particular way.  It's a bipartisan poll, a Republican and Democrat pollster, and no pressure is applied to anybody to answer in a specific way.  "Why, then, do other polls show Americans so different from conservatives?  The short answer is that other polls are scrupulously constructed to hide the tsunami of conservative opinion in America.  On abortion, for example, polls will report that Americans define themselves at least as much 'pro-choice' as they do 'pro-life,' but that is just not true.  The 'pro-choice' advocates nationally oppose bans on partial birth abortion, oppose parental notification, and oppose counseling on abortion.  Led by men like Obama, the 'pro-choice' position is, quite simply, that a woman always has a right to choose an abortion.  Polls do not show support for that at all," and he gives results.  We'll link to this at RushLimbaugh.com.  This, ladies and gentlemen, explains quite a bit.  "Like everything that the left does, from entertainment to higher education, the structure, the format, and the revealed results of information is conformed to present an image in which conservatives and their values are as invisible as blacks in the Antebellum South."

This is why I have been so frustrated over the years when the Republican Party decides to go out and try to get the 2% of the American people that call themselves moderates and some of the 36% that call themselves liberals.  When 60% of the American people since 2002 in the same poll have identified themselves as very conservative or somewhat conservative, it makes no sense for the Republican Party to abandon conservatives.  It's like Senator McCain.  He's putting on a big push for Mrs. Clinton's voters right now, which I understand, because the Drive-Bys are full of stories about how angry Hillary's voters are.  But he wouldn't even need them if he would reach out to conservatives the way he's reaching out to the Clinton voters.  There's a reason Ronald Reagan won two landslides.  It wasn't marketing and packaging.  It was the overall conservative majority of the American people found in a candidate one who was them.  And it forever remains a mystery to me why the Republican Party wants to throw that aside, not only the blueprint, but the knowledge.  It is as though their own polls do not get this answer right.  

These polls obviously differ from any internal poll, from McCain's camp to Obama's camp.  Why doesn't Celinda Lake, for example, the Democrat in the Battleground Poll, why doesn't she go out and warn the Obama campaign, "You don't have a chance here. If McCain ever straightens out and goes full bore conservative, gets a full-bore conservative vice presidential running mate, you guys are going to be toast."  There is a reason that there was so much enthusiasm for McCain after the Saddleback Church forum. It was the most conservative he had been.  And you will note that the Drive-Bys knew it, and the Democrats knew it, the Obama camp knew it, 'cause it was move on fast to try to change the subject or shore up the sad performance.  And so, folks, this is what is so frustrating to people like me who just instinctively understand where the American people are.  By the way, if 60% of the American people are conservative and they say I'm preaching to the choir, it's a pretty big choir.  [SIZE=12px]BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Have you ever wondered, ladies and gentlemen, why the Democrat Party every four years tries to convince voters that they have values, that conservatives care about?  Remember how stunned they were after the '04 election when the exit polling data came out and they find out that "values voters" thought the Democrats were just weak on all this?  So for a week or so, "Yeah, we gotta shore up our image here on values," which meant they gotta find a way to lie to people and try to tell 'em they have the same kind of values they do, because the Democrat Party doesn't.  This country is not a liberal country. This country doesn't like to lose wars. The majority of people in this country do not like hearing their country ripped and trashed by a presidential nominee on foreign soil or on domestic soil, and the values voters in this country are not going to be fooled by a convention show of values.  And they're not going to be fooled by Nancy Pelosi attempting to tell the people of this country that the church doesn't believe what it believes.  This is how they have to go about it.  They're sitting ducks, is the point.  They are political sitting ducks if there ever became again a Republican Party with the courage and conviction to just go pedal-to-the-metal conservative.  [SIZE=12px]END TRANSCRIPT

The Obama Bradley Effect Complexity

The Obama Bradley Effect Complexity
(Race is only a small part.)




In politics and polling there exists a phenomenon known as the “Bradley Effect”.

It came in to being during the 1982 campaign of Tom Bradley, a black politician, who was running for Governor of California against George Deukmejian, a white politician.

The polls leading into the election showed Bradley with a lead, as did the exit polls.

However, once in the ballot booth, many voters pulled the lever for the white candidate. Deukmejian won the election.

Voters had told pollsters one thing and when push came to shove, they did another.
In this election, even though pollsters are attempting to compensate for the Bradley Effect through sly questioning, some are saying that scope of the effect could reach as high as 5 - 10 percent of potential voters.

Unfortunately, this is being attributed solely to Obama’s race.

I would like suggest that if we have a variance between the polls and the vote count, the cause will be much more complicated than simply race.
I think there are probably no less than five considerations that may give rise to some degree of deception on the part of voters.


I’m sure that there will be a small portion of the voting public that will not vote for Senator Obama because he is black and may lie to avoid being thought of as racist.

(The hardcore racists are probably already reflected in the polls.) Thankfully, in this day and age, this will represent only small percentage of the population because most people are beyond race as a reason to exclude someone from elected office. However, my worry is that the media and the black community may see or try to portray any difference between polling and the actual numbers as being completely about Obama’s race.

That would be a shame, because such a portrayal would almost certainly be a misrepresentation of the actual situation.
So what are the other possibilities that could show up as a difference between polling and actual votes?


The media, the left, and the Republican Party itself have been extremely effective in damaging the Republican brand.

The media with its obvious visceral dislike for President Bush takes every opportunity to shape the news in the least favorable light towards the Republican Party; and, their vilification has worked.

In some circles, instead of thinking of Republicans as the party of small government, integrity, fiscal responsibility, national security and state’s rights; they are thought of big spending, big government, morally bankrupt, war mongers.

Even though, the vast majority of Republicans in their personal and public lives remain true to the highest principles of what it means to be Republican, the public image (mis)portrayed daily in the media over the past dozens of years is the one the general public sees.

This vilification has been so relentless that it is easy to imagine some Republicans saying they would vote for Sen. Obama so maybe the media and pollsters might give them absolution.

However, once in the voting booth, their heart of hearts may kick in and they will not be able to pull the level for such an inexperienced, naïve, corrupt, unpatriotic politician who will move the United States towards socialism.


This will be a group from which I expect some volatility come Election Day. Democrats who consider themselves part of the center politically may be somewhat hesitant to tell a pollster that they will not be voting for Senator Obama, the Democrat.

When the Blue Dogs actually face the choice in the voting booth of surrendering the Democratic Party to the extreme left wing or waiting another 4 years for a better option, we may see many pull the lever for Senator McCain.


As someone who considers themselves an Independent, I’ve had the recent opportunity to get to know several Clinton supporters and I have been pleasantly surprised by their thoughtfulness, civility and compassion.

I met these folks when I started blogging just a few months ago in support of Larry Sinclair’s right to have his allegations against Sen. Obama heard and investigated by the media. (The media continues to avoid doing their jobs.) As a result, it is not hard for me to imagine former Clinton supporters who are Democrats with a capital D having a hard time telling a pollster that they would not be supporting the Democratic nominee.

However, when they get in the voting booth I imagine many will be thinking back and remembering the disrespectful treatment Ms. Clinton received from Sen. Obama and the media.
The media turned on Sen. Clinton before our eyes and Sen. Obama went so far a to flip her a bird while pretending to scratch his nose.

I would bet you a dollar to a donut that both of the Clintons will be voting for McCain no matter what they say publicly.


Through this blogging experience, I have also observed first hand the cult like brutality and nastiness of Obama’s internet thugs who patrol the internet trying to quell opposition.

They have released opposition blogger’s sensitive personal information, social security numbers, identities, caused blogs to be shut down, and have made other serious threats, including death threats against Mr. Sinclair.

Consequently, I am very concerned that Sen. Obama will give these thugs and people like Rev. Wright, William Ayers, Farrakhan, etc. legitimacy.


As unfortunate as it is, some people want to be perceived as being on the winning side.

So at this stage, when a pollster asks Mary and Tom who they are voting for – if they are insecure and/or approval driven, they may just say Obama because media is supporting him and they believe he will win.

However, once they’ve made their public declaration for Obama, they are safe.

In the privacy of the voting booth, common sense will have an opportunity to rear its marvelous head and require them to vote against Obama because of all the unanswered questions about his life and experience.

The questions the media have tried to down play, not report and/or cover-up. The sounds of the hate speech from the Senator’s spiritual advisor, Rev. Wright, will come thundering against the curtain. All the allegations of corruption circling around Tony Rezko and his friends will put an odor in the air. The images of the Senator befriending a Pentagon bomber, William Ayers, may raise again the issue of just how patriotic is this man.

The total unfairness of the media’s fawning over Senator Obama may tweak the conscience of the voter and urge him or her to say no to the liberal media’s malicious tampering. The allegations of Larry Sinclair that he and the Senator did cocaine and engaged in consensual gay sex in 1999 will beg the questions: When did he stop using drugs?

If the Senator is not faithful in his relationship with Michelle, how faithful will he be to America?



Lastly, the thought of a Progressive making steps towards something better seems attractive.

However, when one really looks at what it means to be a “Progressive” it should make most American’s recoil.

This political ideology has its roots in the early part of this century with President Wilson.

What it is really about is the idea that they, “The Progressives”, have evolved to a place of understanding and enlightenment about what is best for all of us.

The people that I have encountered who truly buy into this ideology are many times closed minded and condescending because they do believe that they know best.

Senator Obama’s statement about rural American being bitter and clinging to their guns and religion totally reflects the “Progressive’s” view of most of us.

Further, Progressives unfortunately do not hold the Constitution in as high of regard as most Americans because they believe it was written in time long past - for a time long past; and now, it can and should be changed or interpreted as needed to facilitate their goals.


However, I can easily see how some voters might want to be identified as progressive; because, you know, it’s progressive and Obama’s progressive so they will vote for him because everyone must want to progress.

The closer the election gets, I can only hope that these people will discover just how destructive Senator Obama’s agenda will be to our economy, security and founding principles.

No. Regrettably, I think they will probably vote just as they told the pollster because once they progress how can they not progress, because Obama says he progressed and everyone must want to progress.

I think these people probably make up the cult.
As anyone can see, I am not a supporter of Senator Obama.

However, my non-support is entirely because of his policies and what I have discovered about him; and has absolutely nothing to do with his race. In my opinion, Senator Obama should lose this election because he is not the best person for the Presidency of the United States.


However, if Senator Obama does lose, I do sincerely hope that all people will consider the possibility that many factors may have contributed to any differences between the polls and the actually votes. As much as some may want it to be, race is not that big a deal today.
Thank God.

Click here: The Obama Bradley Effect Complexity « ZachJonesIsHome - Helping to Keep an Eye on the Larry Sinclair Allegations