Event Transcript: Beyond Red vs. Blue: The 2005 Political Typology

The Pew Research Center hosted a briefing about the 2005 Political Typology on May 16, 2005. Center president Andrew Kohut's presentation of the study's key findings was followed by a panel discussion with New York Times columnist David Brooks, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and the Center's executive vice president - and former political journalist - Paul Taylor. Here is an edited transcript of the event:

Background on the Political Typology

Kohut: ... The political typology is really a longstanding effort to sort voters into homogenous groups based upon their political beliefs, their party affiliation and voter participation. It's not party ID even though we talk about Republican groups and Democratic groups. We put people into similar groups - groups where people are homogenous and different from voters or citizens in other groups and we organized them in political terms, but we could organize them in other terms as well. But since we want to understand politics, that's why we talk in Republican and Democratic terms but it is not party affiliation.

A word about typologies: There are many ways to make typologies. Typologies are groupings based upon similarities. We could have a typology here at this event based upon length of hair or color of tie or absence of tie - all of these would be relevant ways of distinguishing and clustering groups in the audience. The question becomes, which of these ways of making classifications are the most useful and explain the most. We let the data itself put people into groups, but we make choices about which solutions or which clusters have the most explanatory power.

This is the fourth survey study that we have done. This began in 1987 as a project for the Times Mirror company when I was the president of the Gallup organization. It was a great way to get me out of doing the administrative work. I love doing this. In 1994 it was part of the Times Mirror Center and I was the director of the center then. By 1999 I was with Pew as the Times Mirror - Times Mirror withdrew its funding and this became a Pew Center for the People and the Press, and in 2005 it was of course the Pew Research Center.

There is a great deal of continuity in many of the groups that I am going to be describing to you. They are similar to those in past studies, but obviously there are lots of important changes that have occurred in the country since 1999, September 11th most notably, the Bush presidency, Republican control of Congress. Coming out of the election, one of our key findings - overall conclusions - is that the political landscape has decidedly favored the Republican Party. There was extraordinary loyalty across the GOP base, across the GOP coalition; the Republicans had a sense of appeal to varied centrist groups; and they even made considerable inroads among Democratic groups, but there is no assurance that the Republicans will be able to build on this advantage.

Since we did this study- and the study was done in two stages in December of '04, and then again the late March of '05- we've seen no gains in party affiliation. The GOP base is divided over economic domestic issues, which are increasingly salient in the first five months of this year. Democrats also face continuing challenges: Their constituencies are more diverse than the Republican constituencies and they lack unity on key social and personal values.

The way we do this is we look at a person's party identification, ideology, participation in politics, and then we have 31 questions that are used to measure attitudes and values along nine basic dimensions: foreign policy, religion and morality, environment and regulation, social welfare, and you can read the list.

The Nine Typology Groups in 2005

Kohut: .... We have nine typology groups in this survey. Three are mostly Republican: Enterprisers, staunch conservatives; Social Conservatives, who are very much like the Enterprisers, but there are some key differences on issues which I will point out; and then a new group, which is 86 percent Republican or lean Republican, Pro-government Conservatives.

The two in the middle represent two very different kinds of people. One group we call Upbeats: They are very positive about their lives, they are positive about national institutions, and they lean very substantially toward the Republican Party. ... In the other category we have a group who are just the opposite -- we call them Disaffecteds. They are unhappy with their lives, they are unhappy with the American institutions, but they still lean to the Republican Party. This is the first time in all of these typologies where we've had the two groups in the middle leaning to one party. Generally, it's a much more mixed picture.

On the Democratic side, we see three mostly Democratic groups that are quite familiar to us: Liberals, 92 percent of which are Democratic or lean Democratic. I might add that one of the key ways in which this classification system is different than party affiliation is a good number of these liberals, and you will see what their values are like, call themselves independents. They are not independents by our terms; they are very much liberals and in the Democratic camp. And that's why our middle looks very different in the middle if you just examine party affiliation. We have Disadvantaged Democrats, who we've called in the past the "Partisan Poor." They are largely poor people who look to government to deal with their lives and look to the Democratic Party to help them with their struggling lives. Then we have Conservative Democrats who we used to call New Dealers; they had many of the beliefs of New Deal Democrats. You can't call them New Dealers anymore as we did 1987; there are relatively few New Dealers in the public.

And one last group, the Bystanders, who are largely disengaged from politics. Not only don't they vote -- they don't care, they don't pay attention. We more or less ignore them in this survey.

The Republican Groups

Kohut: On the Republican side, as I said, we have [Enterprisers], staunch conservatives who are conservative up and down the line; Social Conservatives, who have the same views as staunch conservatives except they are more religious [and] they are more critical of business than the staunch conservatives who are not critical of business whatsoever; and then we have a new group that we call Pro-government Conservatives. These are largely poor people who are struggling and want government - almost to the extent that many traditional Democratic groups want government - to deal with their problems and to deal with the nation's problems. The Enterprisers are strongly conservative. They back a certain foreign policy as do all of these Republican groups. That's what makes the difference between Republicans and Democrats. When we did this 1987, it was mostly about the ways Republicans and Democratic groups differed on attitude towards government; now it's more consistently on how they differ on foreign policy - on an assertive foreign policy.

Enterprisers are highly patriotic. They are pro-business, they are anti-regulation, they are anti social welfare. They are well educated, they are affluent, and they are 76 percent male. They are the only group in the typology that's largely male. All of the other groups tip a little female, so when we talk about the gender gap it's mostly people with these values who account for the Republican advantage among men. They are not especially religious. They are as religious as the country is at large, which means they are fairly religious but they are not like the Social Conservatives or the Pro-government Conservatives. There aren't an enormous number of evangelical Protestants in this group.

The Social Conservatives, as I said, agree on most issues, but they are critical of business and they are supportive - more supportive than the Enterprisers - on dealing with the environment and regulating for the sake of the environment. There have been some stories written about white evangelical Protestants and environmental action; it really shows up in this survey. These people are highly religious -- 43 percent are white evangelicals. They are mostly female and they are pretty financially secure. They are not as rich as the Enterprisers, but they are solidly middle class.

The Pro-Government Conservatives are also highly religious and support government action and social issues. They deviate on the support for government assistance to the poor and needy and general support for government regulation. They are largely young, female and financially struggling, though most continue to feel that it's within their reach to improve their situation. They are very individualistic and that is one of the consistent differences between the Democrats and the Republicans; that is, on the Republican side more often people feel that their destinies are in their own hands and they don't feel that the larger institutions of society determine whether they are going to be successful or unsuccessful. So these pro-government conservatives, poor as they are, are highly individualistic.

The Democratic Groups

Kohut: On the Democratic side we have Liberals -- I will describe them in greater detail (they'll be quite familiar to you); Disadvantaged Democrats, who are social welfare loyalists; and Conservative Democrats, the latter-day New Dealers.

Liberals are the largest single block; we have 19 percent. This is the largest registration of this category in any of the typologies, and I think it has had to do a lot with polarization, with people coming together especially on the left in opposition to the Bush administration on a number of fronts. These are strong opponents of an assertive foreign policy, strong supporters of environmental protection, strong supporters of government assistance to the poor, and they are consistently liberal in every issue from abortion to freedom of expression to being against the idea of putting the Ten Commandments up in public buildings, which all of the other typology groups favor. They are affluent; they are well-educated. They are highly secular. They are the ying to the Enterprisers' yang: the two affluent groups who are engaged in politics with highly ideological points of view - highly consistent ideological points of view.

Disadvantaged Democrats also oppose the war. They favor government programs to help the needy, but their financial concerns are great and they therefore give lower priority to dealing with environmental protection if it means it threatens jobs and they are highly concerned about immigration. Many are members of minorities; 60 percent are female. [They show] a great deal of pessimism [and rank] low on the old individualism scale.

Conservative Democrats are very religious, just as conservative on many social issues as Republicans. But compared with other Democrats, they are more hawkish on foreign policy. They are the most individualistic of the left-leaning groups. I keep coming back to individualism because I think it's one of the understated differences in politics - underappreciated. They are older; they are middle class; they include many blacks; they include many Hispanics.

The Middle Groups

I will just give you one more look and that is of Upbeats and Disaffecteds. As I said earlier, the Upbeats are positive, the Disaffecteds are negative, but they both voted for Bush. The Disaffecteds voted at relatively low rates: Only 62 percent reported voting. Upbeats are moderate. They have positive views of their own lives and of national institutions. They are relatively young and well-educated. Most call themselves independents, but they lean Republican and they overwhelmingly voted for Bush.

The Disaffecteds are just the opposite. They are deeply cynical about government. They are much less affluent. They are finically stressed on their jobs. They're strongly anti-immigrant. They lean toward the party in power, and have voted on balance to re-elect President Bush. It's amazing that the Republicans could attract these two very disparate groups of people. As I said, Bystanders are democracy's dropouts.

One more thing: If you look at the middle, you see how the Upbeats and Disaffecteds lean Republican. In the past, it's been a much more mixed picture, and I think this is so important, I just want to drive that home.

Overall Key Findings

Kohut: Some key findings: The Republican base is split over beliefs about the role of government, not surprising given the fact that we have Pro-government Conservatives. The GOP bigger tent now includes many poor people who favor an activist government. We looked to back in 1987: There were very few poor people in two Republican groups, Enterprisers and Moralists. We now have a significant number of poor people on the Republican side.

The most significant fissure within the Democratic base has to do with religious and social values. Cultural issues unite the Republicans while they divide the Democrats. The people in the middle go back and forth. On the one hand, they say they are concerned - both Upbeats and Disaffecteds - that the government is going to play too big a role in the legislating of morality and what they can watch and what they can see and how they can behave. But on the other hand, they oppose gay marriage and are in favor of stem cell research. Making judgments about the middle with respect to the culture of life in many of the social issues is a very tricky thing. They are moderate; they are divided just like the public is on balance.

Opinion about the use of force divides Republican groups and the Democratic groups; I had mentioned that earlier. Environmental protection now stands as a major divide within the GOP's coalition. I think that is very significant. Immigration divides both of the parties, both with respect to whether it's a good thing for the country and whether it is undermining America's traditional values and cultural tradition.

As I said, individualism is now an important value divide. Poor Republicans remain optimistic while poor Democrats are pessimistic. ...

Discussion with David Brooks, E.J. Dionne and Paul Taylor

Kohut: ... I will now join my colleagues [in a discussion]. I am going to ask E.J. [Dionne] to start off because E.J. is the longest - besides me -- the longest-standing observer of the typology groups. I will be interested, giving your long history with the typology, E.J., what you thought of this one?

Dionne: ... I just want to make a few quick points. First, I think the changes in the typology are driven in significant part by Bill Clinton's absence, President Bush's presence, and terrorism and war. And I think one of the questions I'd pose to Andy and that we have to ask is how deep is this alignment...? How much of it is a temporary creation of the Bush presidency - the particularly strong feelings that President Bush mobilizes both in his favor and against him? And how much of it is driven by 9/11 and the war on terrorism? Does this alignment crumble very quickly when President Bush leaves power? Does it crumble very quickly if the threat of terrorism diminishes?

Race, Class and the Disappearance of New Democrats

I think the reason the New Democrats disappeared in Andy's typology is because Bill Clinton isn't there anymore. And then I think a lot of the people who by various measures might be categorized as New Democrats or other kinds of Democrats have been melded into the other categories particularly the Liberal category because so much in politics on the liberal side is now defined by opposition to President Bush. And so I think there is some evidence that a group, something like [the New Democrats] continues to exist, but they are now so firmly in the anti-Bush camp that they appear in [the Liberal] category. Also I think Andy's current Liberals really are a marriage of a couple of old groups that he used to have -- a group called the Seculars, who were once a separate group, and another group called Sixties Democrats, that was popular for a while, possibly with a few ... New Dealers ... sprinkled in. But I think those two groups are now combined, and I think we can sort of debate about whether they should be. I think there is good reason to do it one sense because so much of politics is defined by opposition on the left, but I think that's an interesting question.

... There is a powerful racial dimension to this typology and the politics in the United States; it cannot be understated. If you look at the core Republican groups, the Enterprisers are 91 percent white and 1 percent black. The Social Conservatives: 91 percent white, 4 percent black. And the Pro-government Conservatives, 85 percent white, 10 percent black. I think that it would be interesting to explore how much of the dynamic here is driven partly by race and also by region. I think the Social Conservatives are singularly Southern, and so I think there is a continuing racial dimension here.

I think there is an interesting mystery raised by Andy's very interesting finding that if you look at the core Democratic groups in the survey, they account for 41 percent and the core Republican groups account for 29 percent. Therefore it's not clear to me that the center itself has moved toward the Republicans; it's rather that some of that what is being characterized in the survey as centrist is in fact part of the Republican coalition, particularly the Upbeats, because obviously we all know that the election last time came out with a little less than 51 percent for Bush and 48 percent for Kerry, so something - you have to account for something. I think these two numbers could mean one of two things. One is that the Democratic base is stronger than the Republican base, 41 to 29 is a pretty big margin. The other is that some of the center may be closet Republicans and might, with a little tweaking of the data, easily be pushed into the Republican coalition. The Upbeats in particular look like a very Republican group. The Disaffecteds, as Andy suggested, were a more complicated group.

One thing I wanted to ask Andy about: This group of Enterprisers looks quite different from the Enterprisers that Andy defined back in the 1980s. I looked at this group and I thought that they could be characterized as Rush's guys or perhaps simply "dittoheads." This is a very loyal Republican group, much more socially conservative than the old Enterprisers. They are the real core, and again it's striking. As Andy point out, they are 91 percent white, 76 percent male, and their attitudes on virtually every issue are conservative. And the difference between these Enterprisers and the old ones, as Andy pointed out here, is that they don't feel the same intensity in their social conservatism, but they actually are to one degree or another social conservatives, so that's the core.

I also want to make a point - and this is not the fault of Andy's data, I think it's a way in which his data can be misread ... because the Liberals are rather affluent and in their affluence look like Enterprisers, I think the whole class dimension in American politics gets underplayed - that the Liberals are not the entire Democratic coalition. And I went back and looked at the network exit poll and the evidence suggests, in fact, that class, far from disappearing and being replaced by social issue voting, class is actually deepening in American politics at least slightly. Kerry only carried groups - people earning $50,000 a year or less, narrowly among the $30 to $50,000, quite strongly the $15 to $30,000, and very strongly among people earning under $15,000.

On the other hand, President Bush carried all the groups earning over $50,000 a year and among people earning over $200,000 a year, the Bush margin was 63 percent to 35 percent. So I would just urge everybody to be cautious before they declare that the era of class politics is over because I don't think that's the case and I think that's a misreading of Andy's typology. Again, I don't think that's the fault of the typology itself.

And lastly, before I go into the groups, I think there is an interesting question about the future here. It seems to me that President Bush has already used the most effective issues that he had going, in particular foreign policy, the war on terrorism, toughness abroad in this last election. It would appear from this survey that gay marriage was of some help to President Bush. And it seems to me that the survival of the Republican majority depends on keeping these sorts of issues, particularly terror, front and center because on the whole there were more openings to crack this coalition than to keep it together among the issues that weren't as salient the last time.

The only one that could really crack the Democratic Party, as I see it, is immigration, and the difficulty with that is it cracks both coalitions. It's going to be a very difficult issue for one party to use. I made the point about the enterprisers being Rush's guys and the split on income. It must be said that there is a divide in the Democratic Party on church attendance; the more socially conservative groups who are quite liberal on economics are more than twice as likely to attend church at least once a week as Liberals.

There was a union effect here. If you take the pro-government but less affluent Republican groups, they are 4 to 13 points less unionized than comparable Democratic groups; that is, the Social Conservatives and Pro-government Conservatives are considerably less unionized than Conservative Democrats and Disadvantaged Democrats. That suggests the Democrats have a problem with the declining unions, so they better get busy organizing them quickly. There is a very important marriage issue here; parental status really does define Liberals. That Liberal group is very big but it has some very specific characteristics, one of which is it is much less likely to include people married with children.

For the NRA there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that gun ownership is really not as widespread as the NRA may claim. Sixty percent do not have guns in their home, 37 percent do. But those two core Republican groups are the only groups where a significant majority own guns, and I think that's why that issue is so powerful within the Republican coalition.

I am grateful to Andy for always including this question asking people not whether they own stocks or bonds and some mutual funds but whether they actually trade stocks and bonds because I think that's a better indicator of ... how attitudes may shape up towards certain versions of the ownership society. Only 28 percent trade stocks or bonds in the market, but 53 percent of the Enterprisers do, 35 percent of the Social Conservatives do. If you look at the relatively low number of [people who say they trade stocks] across a lot of these groups -- including the Pro-government Conservatives, the Disaffecteds, the Conservative Democrats, and the Disadvantaged Democrats -- you see why President Bush ... is having some trouble selling his Social Security proposal.

Here is a problem that I see for the Democrats: If you compare the Enterprisers with the Liberals, who in some sense are the purest groups in each party, the Enterprisers are much more likely to identify themselves as Republicans than the Liberals are. Fully 81 percent of the Enterprisers call themselves Republican; only 59 percent of the Liberals call themselves Democrats. I think that gives the Republican Party a certain cohesiveness. Similarly, the people Andy calls Liberals are often not willing to call themselves liberals. I call attention to the fact that while 85 percent of the Enterprisers embrace the conservative label, only 62 percent of the labeled Liberals actually call themselves liberal; 35 percent call themselves moderates and that in part is why I think they lost some new Democrats or some other category hidden within that Liberal group.

The judges issue is only for the base and that's true in both parties. The importance of the next Supreme Court justice: 59 percent of Enterprisers, 47 percent of Social Conservatives, 49 percent of Liberals. All the other groups are in the 20s and 30s on that question.

Last couple of points: It seems to me among the openings that one can see here for realigning the Pro-government Conservatives and the Disaffecteds is on tax cuts. President Bush has largely been successful in the way in which he has defined the tax cut issue and Andy's survey suggests how the way in which the president has framed the issue could be undermined. If you ask the question, should all the tax cuts be made permanent, 28 percent say that; 35 percent say that the tax cuts for the wealthy should be repealed; 25 percent say all the tax cuts should be repealed. That's 60 percent of Americans who say somehow all should be repealed. Only the Enterprisers are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the tax cuts as is. Even the Social Conservatives are marginally in favor of repealing some of the tax cuts.

The minimum wage issue is another social justice issue that has potential harkening back to the '87 survey. Again, only the Enterprisers are opposed, and even they only slightly, to the increase in the minimum wage, and the government guaranteeing health insurance for all citizens. Every group in the typology except Enterprisers favor that by significant margins.

Now, on the tax cut issue, President Bush has won so far because if you ask this simple question, do you favor or oppose raising taxes in order to reduce the deficits, you get two to one oppose. As long as President Bush has been able to keep the tax cut issue in general terms he has been able to win it, but the last question on taxes that Andy asked I think is also revealing. What is a higher priority now, cutting taxes or reducing the federal deficit? Again, only the Enterprisers say cutting taxes is more important. Every other group, some by overwhelming margins, think reducing the deficit is more important.

I think that when one looks at the fate of Andy's 1987 study, one can see how it is conceivable that the Republicans could hang on for one more election as they did in 1988 if the terrorism issue remain central, if they can succeed in keeping some of these other issues framed as they are, but I think the potential is there. This survey feels a bit more to me like 1990 or 1991 than it does like 1987. I think the potential is there for some difficulties within the Republican coalition, and I think a lot depends on how Andy will explain the 41 to 29 break when he gets around to responding to us. But once again as the premier baseball card collector of the Andy typologies, I am grateful you did it again, Andy. Thank you very much.

Kohut: Thank you, E.J. Bravo - you can come to the Pew Research Center anytime you are tired of writing political columns. You can really can go through a set of data. Terrific. I look forward to coming back to some of these questions but, David, your comments.

Brooks: Okay, I will just pick up on a few things E.J. said. First, I agree that the Upbeats are more to the right than in the center. I base that on the fact that I took the test and I was an Upbeat. If you go to the web page and you take the little test, that's where I was and I am not in the center. I'd hate to be there. ...

The second place - now we begin the disagreements - EJ appreciated the study; I bitterly resented it because the old simplistic red-blue divide was much funnier. The division [with] Takoma Park, where you sees Saabs, Audis, and Volvos on the streets, because it's socially acceptable to have a luxury car so long as it comes from a country hostile to U.S. foreign policy, on one side as sort of typical blue America; and then [on the other side] Loudoun County, which is culturally influenced by the game of golf and a state of spiritual grace I call par - living at par, which is based on the idea that you have got your life so calm and cool and collected that next to you, Dick Cheney looks bipolar. The differences between this red and blue typology was much better for a joke... .

E.J. thinks there is still an important role for class, and I say, yes, but it's completely altered from the way it was. Paul Starobin did this a couple of years ago in the National Journal, looking up 261 richest towns in America and they were trending Democratic in all the last six elections. In this last election, I think John Kerry carried the Main Line outside Philadelphia, certainly Montgomery County here, certainly Westchester County; the New Trier-Winnetka area of northern Gold Coast Chicago; Silicon Valley; [and] the coasts. If you look at that, I think, the 100 zip codes with the highest real estate values, I say 98 of them are in safely Democratic areas. So to me there still is a slight class bias to the Republicans if you go strictly on income, but for me the crucial question there is not on the income, it's on college major. ... [P]eople who have majored in numbers and sciences, even if they are rich, still tend to be Republican; people who majored in English literature and history tend to vote Democratic. I am being slightly facetious with that... .

A Rivalry Between Two Elites

But to me the class distinction is between the upper middle class, the highly educated class in which there is a split, and I think it's accurately reflected in the split between the Enterprisers and the Liberals, and the rest of society where the split is much less real. And I think when you are looking at the upper middle class, you are looking at rivalry between two elites: what you might call an educated university class elite and a corporate elite. And they both tend to make a fair bit of money, they both tend to have a fair bit of income or education, but they just see the world differently.

And basically to me what they are arguing about is leadership skills, some people look at George Bush and see a straight-talking man of faith and say, that's exactly the leadership skills we should be having running this country. Other people take a look at George Bush and see a rigid, moronic ideologue and see exactly the wrong set of leadership skills. What they want is a leader who is more nuanced, sees the world in a complex way and is much more conversational. And to me when you look at the bitterness between the left and the right, to me it's mostly at the top among the rivalry among the educated class and then about leadership skills much more than issues.

There has been this debate over whether we are in the middle of a cultural war in society; some people like Gertrude Himmelfarb think we are. Other people, like Mo Fiorina, think we are not. Pew's studies have always, I have thought, very nicely had a much more nuanced view, much more distinctions between red and blue, and to me we are in the cultural war in the upper educated class and we are not in the rest of society. And one of the interesting things, by the way, about voting is the more educated a voter is, the less likely that voter is to split tickets in an election. ...

College educated voters are less independent than high-school educated voters, so I think ... the class [divide is] between two rival elites and then much more confused, much more independent, much more cross-pressured middle- and lower-middle classes. And then staying within the elites, that leads to the interesting thing that E.J. picked up on is ... there are very few New Democrats right now and the question is, is that permanent? And I have trouble with numbers, so I always think of case studies: I have a friend, who I will call E.J., a close friend of mine who once wrote a book called "Why Americans Hate Politics" - this is strictly anonymous; I don't want to give away who I am talking about - who said we have to move beyond the false choices of left and right. And my friend E.J., I mentioned to him the other day, has gone from "beyondism" to belligerence. He is now much more strongly partisan and thinks that you really shouldn't deal with President Bush because on Social Security, he will dupe you and he will manipulate you to his ends, and the question is -

Dionne: A very intelligent friend you have. (Laughter.)

...

Brooks: Intelligent, yes; right, not always. It's funny.

And so... The question is, will the New Democrats come back when George Bush goes? And I think E.J. thinks yes. I am a little more dubious. I am dubious in part because I wonder if the New Democrat phenomenon was a function of the 1990s and having no national security threat. Andy mentioned that it's the fight - it's the international issues, security issues that are really divided left and right, and in the '90s we were less aware of international conflict. If now, for the next couple of generations, we are aware of international conflict, and then get all hyped up over war and the use of American power, will that passion bleed over in to anything and everything else? I think that's largely what's happened now and I think it will probably continue.

The other thing I would say is Al Gore walked away from the New Democratic style before September 11th and before George Bush. Al Gore in his convention speech in 2000 said you are controlled by forces beyond your control, which is the signature phrase of the Disaffected Democrats and not the phrase of the Upbeats. That is the phrase that separates to me a New Democrat from a liberal; whether you think people should feel or accurately feel they are under the control of forces beyond their control, whether it's globalization, large companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, whatever, to me that's the crucial distinction between liberals and New Democrats. And I think Al Gore walked away from the Bill Clinton formulation even before George Bush had a chance to polarize the economy and I happen to think that's where a lot of Democrats are.

And having said that, I wrote a column Sunday about this poll and I mentioned some of the conflicted people at the lower middle class and I got a call from Rahm Emanuel and Harold Ford on Sunday, both of whom fervently hoping there were New Democrats and that the policies they championed would be there and I think at the elite level they are. But I just wonder if in the country, there are any New Democrats for Peter Beinart and Harold Ford and Rahm Emanuel to build a party off of.

So then we get to the lower middle and here I do think you have great instability. You have a chance for real, important realignments. When I was preparing my column for Sunday, which is about this study, I placed a call to Karl Rove and he didn't call me back until I was walking over here. And his take was that this gave him a blueprint for global domination till 2150. He saw it essentially the way I saw, but he had a good formulation, which was that's it's a mistake to think there is a distinction between values issues and economic issues; that economics issues are values issues and if you believe in the value - what the Republican parties used to call the free labor ideology - that we all have a chance to start at the bottom and we all have it within our power to rise to the top, that's a value whether economic policies serve you or not. If people embrace that value system, as they seem to for a lot of these poorer Republicans, then you support that party. And so I think the point is that as long as the Republican Party can be the party of economic optimism, it will have a hold on people who are down the income scale.

... [T]wo final quick points. First, Andy mentioned the importance of individualism. This is obviously a subject that needs to be parsed very closely because both parties have versions of individualism and versions of communitarianism worked into them, yet the Republicans may be more economically individualist, but certainly culturally and religiously they are very communitarian and maybe vice versa for the Democrats. So it's this definition of individualism that I would say is important.

And then finally to roundup on the all-important issue, the Hillary Clinton issue. Can she make it if she runs in '08? I was struck by how popular she was - she and Bill Clinton both were - among poor Republicans, and I have always thought there really is a big opportunity for Democrats who embrace economic individualism and social moderation. In fact, if I were starting a party right now out of scratch, I think the person I would start with is Gary Bauer because the consensus view among the upper middle class types is why aren't you taking a party that's fiscally conservative but socially liberal? There you could build a really important majority party. I think that's exactly wrong; that the real party to be built, if you want to just build the majority party out of scratch, would be socially conservative and economically center left, which is basically where Gary Bauer is. And I think that's your majority party and I think that's one of the things that comes out of this data.

Kohut: Thank you, David. Paul?

Taylor: If I were to project on to the screen that is no longer behind us, two familiar maps -- the Electoral College map of 2000 and 2004 -- but didn't say which was which, I would guess that a lot of people in this very sophisticated audience at first glance would have trouble figuring out which was which. Not because you are not very smart, but because they were nearly identical. In fact in terms of matched pairs of elections, these were two as close as any in our history. Only three states changed in terms of their partisan alignment between 2000 and 2004 and those three -- Iowa and New Mexico which went red and New Hampshire which went blue - switched within just a couple of thousand votes; they were basically split states.

Continued...