NEOAVATARA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_re_us/us_centrist_america

A new Pew polls shows that there are more people politically identified as independents today than in any time in modern U.S. history.  36% call themselves Independents, 35% Democrats, and an all-time low 23% Republicans.

So how does the press analyze this?  Predictably.  They state that Barack Obama has brought a feeling of centrism to the country, and thus people are moving to the center.

There is another way to look at it, however:

The same Pew poll states that overall, American ideals have not changed at all.  In other words, the country hasn’t become more ideologically liberal or conservative just because Barack Obama was elected.

Furthermore, unlike the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, we are not seeing a big shift to the governing party, i.e. the Democrats.  So what does that say?

It seems clear to me, but not so clear to the media.  Many of the new ‘independents’ are actually disaffected Republicans.  They are mad at the foreign wars, the deficit spending, and overall lack of fiscal conservatism from the current crop of Republicans.

Clearly, the 23% GOP identification is terrible.  But it is somewhat of a misnomer.  For example, when I get polled (and I get polled fairly often, for one reason or another), I call myself an Indpendent as well.

This poll tells us two very interesting, and somewhat diametrically opposed facts.

First, the Republicans are a mess, and people frankly don’t want to call themselves Republicans.  Hell, when Rush Limbaugh is ‘resigning as titular head of the Republican Party‘, things are bad.

Second, it tells us that Barack Obama has not built a long term winning coalition…yet. Unlike Reagan, who had ‘Reagan Democrats‘, Obama has no such centrist bloc voting for him.  He could build this political bloc, but as of yet, it has not formed.  That is a potential target for new fiscal conservatism to take aim at.