ThoughtCrimes
Old Navy Vet
I have been reading so many posts lately about who's Kung Fu was better on the political battlefield in these here United States. The GOP'ers have been the folks with the most constant and loudest harangue in attack of their adversaries of the left's political affiliations. Silly rabbits, as if that truly added weight and changed the balance believing the political affiliation were the true path to enlightenment and the penultimate and true 'Way of the Dragon' in their political jihad.
Thinking about that tiresome back and forth, I went about looking for some basic facts and truth at the root of the issue and, as an Independent, was rewarded handsomely. I found a trove of information with data that went back almost 15 years at the website of one of the oldest polling firms in the USA; Gallup!
~~ Party Affiliation ~~
Their data I used in the graphs below can be found at the link above. It contains the polling results of 322 polls over the last 178 months (~15 years) with multiple sampling from one to five polls per month. To maintain the time intervals in the Y axis I only used the first poll of any given month. The Trend lines for each plot of the data are 4th order polynomial owing to the number of data points over extended time. Here's the first graph showing the plots of the percentages of Independents, Democrats and Republicans and the trend line of each plot.
The point of greatest interest is that Independents rank 1st in numbers, Democrats rank 2nd and Republicans rank last in numbers overall. As a matter of fact, the percentages over the average of the entire 178 months from the data are Independents = 38.2%, Democrats = 31.8% and Republicans = 28.2%.
From the starting point of the Chart in January 2004, the top three political groups were essentially equal at one third each, but that changed in an unexpected manner starting in the middle of 2006. The most defining characteristic of the chart directly below displays that over time the number of Independents has grown significantly to ~ 43%, while the numbers have shrunk to ~30% for Democrats and ~27% for Republicans.
In conjunction with the data collected above for those three categories, separate polling was done at the same time for a second Gallup data set.The categories were for those identifying as Republican plus those Independents leaning Republican and those identifying as Democrat plus those Independents leaning Democratic. I was blown away when I graphed the data and saw the results.
The plots display a combination of a distinct preference by the electorate toward the Bluer side of the political spectrum and a distancing from the redder part unlike the attitudes of just 15 years ago. But the most fascinating and startling was the WIDE disparity between the Dem, GOP and Indy allegiance for nearly the last 15 years. The two party system appears to be slowly dying.
I believe the take away from these two Charts is for the last 15 years the electorate has increasingly tired of the two political parties dominating the political landscape and moving their allegiance away from Republican or Democrat support to a non-committal paradigm. Hell, even Texans are pulling their heads out into the fresh air considering the Senate contest there this year.
Thinking about that tiresome back and forth, I went about looking for some basic facts and truth at the root of the issue and, as an Independent, was rewarded handsomely. I found a trove of information with data that went back almost 15 years at the website of one of the oldest polling firms in the USA; Gallup!
~~ Party Affiliation ~~
Their data I used in the graphs below can be found at the link above. It contains the polling results of 322 polls over the last 178 months (~15 years) with multiple sampling from one to five polls per month. To maintain the time intervals in the Y axis I only used the first poll of any given month. The Trend lines for each plot of the data are 4th order polynomial owing to the number of data points over extended time. Here's the first graph showing the plots of the percentages of Independents, Democrats and Republicans and the trend line of each plot.
The point of greatest interest is that Independents rank 1st in numbers, Democrats rank 2nd and Republicans rank last in numbers overall. As a matter of fact, the percentages over the average of the entire 178 months from the data are Independents = 38.2%, Democrats = 31.8% and Republicans = 28.2%.
From the starting point of the Chart in January 2004, the top three political groups were essentially equal at one third each, but that changed in an unexpected manner starting in the middle of 2006. The most defining characteristic of the chart directly below displays that over time the number of Independents has grown significantly to ~ 43%, while the numbers have shrunk to ~30% for Democrats and ~27% for Republicans.
In conjunction with the data collected above for those three categories, separate polling was done at the same time for a second Gallup data set.The categories were for those identifying as Republican plus those Independents leaning Republican and those identifying as Democrat plus those Independents leaning Democratic. I was blown away when I graphed the data and saw the results.
The plots display a combination of a distinct preference by the electorate toward the Bluer side of the political spectrum and a distancing from the redder part unlike the attitudes of just 15 years ago. But the most fascinating and startling was the WIDE disparity between the Dem, GOP and Indy allegiance for nearly the last 15 years. The two party system appears to be slowly dying.
I believe the take away from these two Charts is for the last 15 years the electorate has increasingly tired of the two political parties dominating the political landscape and moving their allegiance away from Republican or Democrat support to a non-committal paradigm. Hell, even Texans are pulling their heads out into the fresh air considering the Senate contest there this year.
