INFO 202 Fall 08 Blog

I just wanted to make yet another remark on the power of classification, again with respect to the presidential election (a popular theme in 202). Many analysts have already pointed this out, but it’s worth repeating that framing political standpoints into “this versus that” arguments (for example: pro-life v. pro-choice; gun control v. “right to protect your family;” “red states” v. “blue states”) tend to promote the perception that the nation is becoming more and more polarized.

Both graphics both taken from a University of Michigan article (http://wwwpersonal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/).

Take the concept of red v. blue counties: the top-most graphic depicts which political party predominated in the 2004 election by county (all or none), while the bottom-most graphic depicts the percentage of each county who voted Democrat versus the percentage who voted Republican. Of course the top graphic does depict more accurately how the electoral college system works, but the two graphics illustrate that the lines of political division (by geographic location) aren’t as obvious as they are often made to appear.

I also found an interesting article from the Hoover Institution (a political think tank from Stanford) http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/6731096.html, which talked about the people’s tendency to lean towards the middle of an issue.  Some exerpts:

• On Political Trends Over Time:  “Moderate voters have not disappeared. According to Gallup Poll data, Americans classify themselves ideologically in about the same way as they have since the 1970s: Between 15 to 20 percent identify as liberal, 40 to 45 percent as moderate, and 35 to 40 percent as conservative.”
• On Abortion:  “Only 30 percent of Democrats believe it should be ‘legal under all circumstances,’ and only 30 percent of Republicans believe it should always be illegal. Large pluralities of both parties prefer the middling option of ‘legal only under certain circumstances.’”
• On Guns:  “Upward of 35 percent of gun owners voted for John Kerry in 2004, as did a similar proportion of born-again Christians. Public opinion surveys that compare the policy views of red-state and blue-state residents show that they do not differ nearly as much as commonly presumed.”
• On Majorities:  “In 2004, for example, a narrow majority of red-state residents joined a larger majority of blue-state residents who favored making gun regulations stricter. Solid majorities of blue-state residents share red-state residents’ support for the death penalty and opposition to gay marriage. Political differences? Yes. A cultural chasm? No.”

Perhaps, as other in the class have noted (Michael Manoochehri, Michael Lissner, Ryan Greenberg, et. al.), a more enumerative approach to categorizing issues would reveal some greater truths – in this case, that the differences among opinions in the Democrat and Republican camps are not always as vast as they are presented.