Fatal Flaw

The Bay Area Center for Voting Research has released a study ranking US cities according to political ideology.

The top 5 liberal cities are:

5. Oakland, CA
4. Washington, D.C.
3. Berkely, CA
2. Gary, IN
1. Detroit, MI

The top 5 conservative cities are:

5. Plano, TX
4. Hialeah, FL
3. Abiline, TX
2. Lubbock, TX
1. Provo, UT

The problem is, the methodology used to determine these labels is seriously flawed. According to this article, the study took each city's compiled votes for President Bush and for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the Democratic presidential nominee, and added to those totals the city's votes for third party presidential candidates, depending on their positions on the political spectrum.

Since President Bush is clearly NOT a conservative, the study doesn't take in to account those moderate Democrats who recognized one of their own and voted for Bush accordingly. This study, and the entire main stream media have failed to recognize that the country has not become more conservative, but that the GOP has moved leftward and attracted Democrats that are tired of the luntic fringe.

The fatal flaw in the study is that they assumed that anyone that voted for Bush is in fact a conservative. Such an assumption requires a huge leap of logic given Bush's less than conservative political record.

In all fairness, the study is likely to be generally accurate. Detroit certainly is liberal and Provo certainly leans toward the conservatives but for a more accurate study, they should determine what defines a conservative or a liberal and poll the people directly on their beliefs about a variety of subjects.