Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They’ve Been In 100 Years
Political Scientist: Republicans Most Conservative They’ve Been In 100 Years
By Frank James
National Public Radio
April 13, 2012
“The likely outcome of the election is that it’s a very close victory by President Obama, the Republicans hold the House and may come within an eyelash of taking the Senate. I could see a 50-50 Senate. So good luck. After $2 billion gets spent on federal elections at all levels, how bitter will the atmosphere will be in January 2013? We’re really up the creek.” — Keith Poole
When President Obama recently complained to news media executives about their ostensibly even-handed “pox on both of your houses” coverage of the partisan battles in Washington, it might have seemed like, well, a partisan shot from a Democratic president.
After all, his complaint was that the GOP had moved so far right, and intransigently so, that it was wrong to create a false “equivalence” by blaming both parties equally for the Washington gridlock. To a skeptic that comment, coming from a Democrat, sounded suspiciously partisan itself.
But while the president was making the kind of argument you would expect of the nation’s top Democrat, he actually had the support of science — well at least political science research that maps that rightward GOP shift.