Pew Poll: Not A Simple Left/Right - Where Do You Fit? Take The Test.

The title of this post is a link to a really interesting site where Pew, a respected polling organization, asks:

To identify your typology group, select one response from each of the paired statements below.  Even if neither statement is exactly right, choose the response that comes closest to your views.

There are 20 questions; each presents two different positions and you choose the statement which most closely represents your beliefs. (You have to imagine yourself to be an American.) The first choice to make is:

• It IS NOT necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.
• It IS necessary to believe in God in order to be moral and have good values.

Pew analyzes your answers and determines where you belong on the following continuum:

• Staunch Conservatives (9% of the public)
• Main Street Republicans (11%)
• Libertarians (9%)
• Disaffecteds (11%)
• Post-Moderns (13%)
• New Coalition Democrats (10%)
• Hard-Pressed Democrats (13%)
• Solid Liberals (14%)
• Bystanders (10%)

I'm in the Solid Liberal category -- surprise, surprise! It is a bit of a shock, though, to learn that Solid Liberal is the largest of the categories, while Staunch Conservative is only 9%.

What do each of these mean?  What the heck is a Disaffected, or a Post-Modern? Joan McCarter at Crooks & Liars describes the categories as follows:

Two are reliably Republican (Staunch Conservatives and Main Street Republicans), and three are reliably Democratic (Solid Liberals, Hard-Pressed Democrats, and New Coalition Democrats). Three are “mostly independent,” although Libertarians and Disaffecteds tend to lean right and Post-Moderns tend to lean left. Finally, there’s the category of Bystanders, who are the disengaged party of non-voters.

The differences between Hard-Pressed Democrats and New Coalition Democrats are a mix of race and age. Hard-Pressed Democrats skew older, and are a mix of whites and African-Americans. New Coalition Democrats are younger, and have a large Latino component. New Coalition Democrats seem more optimistic about institutions (not just government but business as well; only 38% of New Coalition Democrats say, "Business corporations make too much profit" as opposed to 79% of Hard-Pressed Democrats). Hard-Pressed Democrats take a much dimmer view of immigration (only 13% of them say, "Immigrants today strengthen our country," compared with 70% of New Coalition Democrats).

The Pew site explains the categories by describing "What They Believe" and "Who They Are". For example, Disaffecteds are described as follows:

What They Believe

• Highly critical of both government and business
• Sympathetic to the poor and supportive of social welfare programs
• Concerned about immigration
• Majority believes the country can't solve many of its important problems
• Religious and socially conservative

Who They Are

• Most financially stressed of the groups: nearly half describe their household as "struggling"
• 71% have experienced unemployment in their household in the past 12 months
• About two-thirds have only a high school education or less
• Compared with the national average of 33%, more are parents (44%)
• 26% have a U.S. passport — well below the national average
• 23% follow NASCAR racing

Pew then present a series of graphs giving information about these groups. The first is "How this group compares to the rest of the country on key issues." For example, 73% of Disaffecteds agree with the statement that "Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient", compared to 55% of the general public.

The next series of graphs extrapolates your data by showing how your category, in general, responds to other questions:

• Experienced unemployment
• Recession impact
• Currently underemployed
• Top economic worry
• Hard work & success
• National satisfaction
• Obama job approval
• Attention to government
• Political participation
• 2012 vote preference
• Attitude toward the Tea Party
• I like elected officials who…
• Trust in government
• U.S. standing in the world
• Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution should be based on…
• Importance of the deficit
• Wall Street
• U.S. involvement in world
• U.S. approach to allies
• U.N. favorability
• Democracy in Middle East
• Libyan air strikes
• Afghanistan troop removal
• U.S. approach to China on economic issues
• Islam and violence
• Free trade
• Health care policy
• Same-sex marriage
• Abortion
• Immigration reform
• Immigration enforcement
• Gun rights
• Marijuana use should be …
• Energy policy
• Government role in childhood obesity?

On "Obama job approval", for example, the question was posed: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President? Disaffecteds disapproved, 57-28.

The last series of graphs shows how each category breaks down according to:

• Gender
• Age
• Race/Ethnicity
• Education
• Income
• Party

Here are the results for the Disaffecteds:

• 54% male.
• 34% are 30-49 and 34% are 50-64. 
• 77% are white (non-Hispanic). 
• 66% have a high school education or less. 
• 51% earn less than $30,000 per year. 
• 63% consider themselves to be Independent, 25% Republican.

Interesting stuff.