THE INEVITABLE DECLINE OF POPULARITY FOUNDED ON IGNORANCE
THE INEVITABLE DECLINE OF POPULARITY FOUNDED ON IGNORANCE In most recent Presidential contests, the Democratic contender fell from a modest or even large lead in the summer to a tight race or even sound defeat in the November election. Two factors are at work here in my opinion. One is the fact that later polls are based increasingly on "likely voters," while early polls tend to be registered voters or even "all adults." The latter two measures overstate the Democratic vote by 4-7 percent historically. So early "leads" may not be quite as real as the media hypes them to be. But, second, the basic characteristic of the American electorate has time to emerge. Americans, even with the decline in the GOP "brand" (so widely reported), are still two to one self-identified conservatives over self-identified liberals. Liberals generally cannot even run as liberals anymore, now they call themselves "progressives" even in their own circles. As t...