By Christopher Cook

A presidential election year is a hyper-partisan time in America, and the headline of this piece may seem like little more than partisanship from a partisan commentator. But the headline is true, and demonstrably so.

This Pew study contains within it a wide variety of fascinating details, and it is all worth a look. What caught my eye, however, was the last chart. Simply put, the chart is a graphical representation of where voters place themselves, and each of the front-runners for president, on the political spectrum from left to right. There are three spectra, one for all voters, one for just Democrats, and one for just Republicans.

Take a look:

There are a number of striking elements, but I will mention one briefly and then get to the main event (the politically delusional nature of Democrats).

The appetizer is simple, and should be self-evident. It is what Redstate noted: America is a conservative nation. If you take a look at the first spectrum, you will see that when the aggregate of American voters are asked to place themselves on the political spectrum, they place themselves comfortably to the right of the center-point, herein called "moderate."

This should come as no surprise. America is one of the most religious nations in the West. It is, by and large, more fiscally and socially conservative than our friends in Europe and elsewhere. Not in every way; there has been some recent erosion in both our culture and our adherence to free-market economics...and even some disturbing signs that other nations may surpass us in terms of fiscal conservatism. But looking at the whole of the latter half of the 20th century, during which most of the people alive today developed their character and ideas, we are a comparatively conservative bunch o' folks. That's a good thing.

It also, on personal note, justifies something I've been saying now for about a year. I have been describing Morton Kondracke as the center of the country, and then, semi-jokingly, saying that everything to the left of Kondracke is "the Left." It's been more a way to make people smile than a serious piece of political analysis, but it was born of a serious observation. If you pay attention to the positions that Kondracke espouses, they appear to place him just to the right of the center-point on a fixed political spectrum. That spectrum and the assessment of his positions both must be described with intellectual honesty in order to be accurate, i.e., one must try to view them as they really are in an objective sense, not based on one's own subjective views. You must place the center point where it really is on an objective scale. I believe I did that with my assessment of Kondracke's positions and their relative locus on an objective spectrum. Then, knowing inherently that America is a somewhat conservative nation, I decided that the ever-so-slightly right-of-center Kondracke represented the center-point of where Americans are politically. This chart seems to reinforce that notion. If anything, Kondracke may even be a bit further to the left than where the aggregate of Americans place themselves.

And finally on this first point, it should be added that Redstate's focus was on the idea that this bodes very well for Republicans. Yes, the GOP brand may be suffering a little bit, but ideologically, America is with us. Recover the brand—and get around Hollywood, academia, and the MSM, who keep Americans from realizing just how much closer the GOP is to them ideologically—and the GOP should be in fine electoral shape. Whether that happens in '08, '10, '12...that's another matter, but it's generally good news for the long term.

Okay, now to to the entree. Since facts tell, but stories sell, I will start this out with a story. (Then, I will finish with cold, hard facts.)

I was once in a phone conversation with someone, a person who is close and who happens to be solidly on the political left. We were talking about something non-political, and I innocently said, "oh yeah, I saw that on FOX News yesterday."

**insert sound of music ceasing with a jarring record-needle scratch**

"Oh my God, FOX News?"

Oh no, here we go, I thought.

And there we went. I had made the mistake of forgetting that most of the left is suffering from FOX Derangement Syndrome, a companion to Bush Derangement Syndrome and a sequela to the left's realization that now, instead of 98% of the mainstream media being a propaganda arm for their agenda, their hegemonic control is down to 91%.

I then received a lecture about how far to the right FOX is. I tried to respond by saying that even if I were to stipulate that that is true, it is certainly no further to the right of the political center than CNN is from the center to the left.¹

But my disputant would have none of that: CNN is mainstream, FOX is right-wing lunacy!

I tried to use analogies, metaphors, and imagery to explain the notion of an objective political spectrum. Think of yourself as a bird, looking down on this really long line....

Nothing worked. I was tearing my hair out trying to get her to see my point. Then I realized...

Oh my goodness, she has absolutely no objective understanding of the political spectrum. She has no idea where the center point actually is, except as it is measured relative to her own political position. Or, to put it more simply...she thinks Ted Kennedy is a moderate.

A wave of calm came over me, as I realized that it was not that i was failing to make myself clear, it was that her understanding of the American political spectrum was entirely subjective. I remember thinking to myself, with a small measure of pride, that I had an objective sense of the spectrum, and I knew where I was on it. I did not have the hubris to think that the center point was just slightly to the left of me. I also remember extrapolating a little bit, thinking to myself, I betcha a lot of Democrats are like this.

Well, as it turns out, that extrapolation was entirely right. Take a look at the three spectra again. Look at the Republican candidates; pick a candidate and look vertically to compare his position on the three spectra. McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and Bush hardly move. This is an indication that people have an objective sense of where they are on the political spectrum. (Giuliani moves a bit more on the Democrats' spectrum, probably because his strength and vibe as a scrappy street-fighter politician unnerves them into thinking that he is ideologically more conservative, when in fact, he's just tougher.)

But now, take a look at the Democrats spectrum, and how they see their own candidates. All of a sudden, the Clinton and Obama squares go screeching towards the center, stopping surprisingly close to the very midpoint of America's political highway

That notion is patently absurd. I will not muddy the waters by trying to suggest that either Clinton or Obama is further to the left from center than our conservative candidates are to the right. Let's just say that they are at least equally far.

Let's take one of the Republicans: Romney, who has placed himself in the mainstream of the center-right. Looking at all three spectra, he barely budges. Once you get to the Republican spectrum, his square doesn't go careening towards the center. Simply put, that is because Republicans have an objective understanding of the political spectrum and where we are on it.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a delusional picture of the spectrum in which they—their candidates and they themselves—are very near to America's center.

As anyone who has raised children knows, it takes some years of work to get a child to realize that the world doesn't revolve around him. This is not a statement against children; this form of narcissism is a necessary survival skill. However, as the need for this narcissism diminishes, the successful parent helps to replace it with a more accurate picture of where that child fits in as a member of a society, teaching all of the rules, norms, requirements, and privileges concomitant with that membership. It's called growing up.

So tell me, then, why would we want to turn over the levers of power to a group of people with such an infantile and self-centered understanding of their own position in American politics?

When I see an adult displaying the narcissism you'd expect from a toddler, my first thought is never, yeah, let's put that guy in charge.

1. I actually recall a study done in 2004 that indicated that, based on its election coverage, FOX was just a tiny bit to the right, and CNN and MSNBC were further to the left---significantly further from the center to the left than FOX was to the right.

Update, 1/22: Fixed spelling of "Kondracke." Oops, sorry Mort.