On every key political issue of the past several months, the defining view of the "conservative" movement and the conventional wisdom of the establishment press is one that is shared by a small minority of Americans -- in each case within the range of 19-36%, but typically hovering around 25-30%, representing the same small band of hard-core Bush followers and True Believers who provide the President with his 25-30% floor for approval ratings. Conversely, these defining right-wing views are overwhelmingly rejected by Americans in virtually every area.And yet these are the views that receive far more representation than any other in our mainstream press and are treated as though they are the serious, centrist views. The disconnect between the political discussion conducted by our media and popular American public opinion is hard to overstate.
Unfortunately, most of those true believers are my neighbors here in red state El Paso county Colorado. Nice people, but jeez, what does it take? More than watching the news, certainly, which has shamelessly and perhaps unnecessarily pursued this demographic in hopes of higher ratings.
