Constant Conservative

Over at PowerLine, Paul is wondering if conservatives actually made progress in the elections, based on some of the polling which we now have access to.

It may well be. I would like to think that such a trend is beginning and can be capitalized upon during the next election cycle. However, based on the loosening of language in general, and my own daily experience in particular (where someone recently used the word “altercation” a dozen times in as many minutes to speak of changes, that is “alterations,” he had made to something) I sometimes wonder if certain polling results are not simply a question of people misunderstanding the words which are used.

For example, take the following excerpt from the referenced article:

In our post-election poll we asked two unique questions “Are you more favorable toward ‘Republican’ or ‘conservative’ and ‘Are you more favorable toward ‘Democrat’ or ‘liberal’? ACTUAL voters participating in an election that gave Obama over 300 electoral votes and strengthened the Democratic advantage in the U.S. Senate also said the following: 41% of them preferred conservative and 25% Republican. Startlingly, by a 3-1 margin (55%-18%), actual voters preferred ‘Democrat’ to ‘liberal.’

The words person in me thinks that the results might be skewed by people thinking that “conservative” had something to do with “conservation” (a topic near and dear to the “liberal” heart) for instance. I realize that this might well not be the case, but I also know that such simple confusions do occur.