Conservative voters redefine "conservative"

A mantra among Republicans — especially within the right-leaning world of think-tanks and talk radio — is that America remains a “center-right” country.

As Exhibit A in their argument, they point to a CNN exit poll conducted during last Tuesday’s general election.

The survey found that 34% of Americans define themselves as conservative. By contrast, only 22% of voters say they’re liberal.

Sounds pretty definitive, right? I mean, that still looks like a huge conservative advantage. Perhaps Tuesday’s election was an anomaly?

Unfortunately for Republicans, the picture is far more treacherous.

For one thing, Americans who describe themselves as “conservative” have grown increasingly comfortable with things that card-carrying “movement conservatives” despise.

Things like increased government aid for the poor, more Federal involvement in the economy, universal health care, and robust environmental programs.

They also engage in private social behaviors that The Right opposes, ranging from divorce to abortion to same-sex relationships.

These self-identifying conservatives are so wayward, in fact, that one out of five actually voted for Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate.

(By contrast, only one in ten “liberals” voted for John McCain.)

Give conservatives credit. They succeeded in making the label “conservative” attractive. People like to describe themselves that way.

But the movement has failed to convince those same voters to share much of their agenda.

And there’s a bigger problem.

Conservatives prefer to side-step the fact that the biggest chunk of voters in that exit survey (44%) describe themselves as moderates.

A whopping 60% of those voters chose Obama, an African American candidate described by Republicans as a “socialist” and the “most liberal Democrat in the Senate.”

“I think this begs the question as to what self-described ‘moderates’ mean when they label themselves that way,” wrote Andrew Stuttaford, in the conservative National Review.

“My guess is that the very idea of what a ‘moderate’ is has shifted quite some way to the left of late. In many respects, the right’s key job over the next four years will be to push it back again.”

This Big Push is made more difficult by the fact that Democrats are winning decisively among every demographic group — young people, educated professionals, Hispanics, and Asian Americans — that is growing in numbers.

Republicans are leading in only two demographics, both of which are dwindling in clout: rural and elderly voters.

It may be time for conservative leaders to stop talking and start listening.

Listen first to Americans who describe themselves as conservative. What do those 34% of voters think the Right’s agenda should be? What issues matter to them?

And why did a big chunk of them vote for a Democrat in 2008?