Have the democrats shifted left?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Krazen, even without the effects of teacher unions, one should expect that teacher salaries would rise faster than average salaries.  Females have a far wider choice of professions these days than they once did.  Hence the supply of potential teachers is down.  You might wish to return to the days of the 1950s when teaching was one of the few professions an educated woman could aspire to, but it ain't gonna happen.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

According to Gallup, 29% of Democrats were Liberals in 2000, and 39% in 2011.

Also according to Gallup, 21% of Independents were Liberal in 2000, and 20% in 2011.

Republicans were 6% Liberals in 2000, and 4% in 2001.

So, yes, the Democrats have drifted to the left.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152021/conservatives-remain-largest-ideological-group.aspx

Does it occur to you that self-identification based upon the vague and nonsensical terms used in American politics and media might not be the best metric for this, or that ten years might not be the timeframe most germane to the initial question?

I posted data from a respected pollster with a link.

You posted nothing to support your views.

Hmm.

CARL. even when given help, you often refuse to consider viewpoints that don't meet your preconceived ideas.  The data you cited from that poll support several equally logical possibilities.

1. The possibility you gave, that the Democrats have shifted left and the Republicans have shifted right, while the center has remained relatively unchanged.

2.  The possibility that Nathan gave, that the center has shifted to the right and the Republicans have shifted even further to the right.  (This could be further broken down into the Democrats have shifted right, but not as much as the center, the Dems have stayed the same, or the Dems have shifted to the left.)

3. The center has shifted to the left, and Democrats have shifted even further to the left.  (This could be further broken down into the Republicans have shifted left, but not as much as the center, the Reps have stayed the same, or the Reps have shifted to the right.)

The reason why all of those possibility are valid under the data Gallup provides is that Gallup provides no information on how what is considered liberal and conservative in 2001 compares to what is considered liberal and conservative in 2011.

The only certain thing we can ascertain from the Gallup data is that the two parties are more polarized in 2011 than in 2001.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here are some amazing facts:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_068.asp


Student enrollment in 1970: 45,894,000
Student enrollment in 1995: 44,840,000


Teachers employed in 1970: 2,059,000
Teachers employed in 1995: 2,598,000



It's barely conceivable how 25 years of technological advancement can lead to such a massive, rampant decline in labor productivity. Of course in the private sector this would not be tolerated.

When I graduated high school in 1984, a South Carolina high school diploma required collecting 18 course units.  Today, such a diploma requires 24 course units.  While the exact numbers vary from state to state, it is true that we expect more teaching to be done now than we once did.  The increase in high school units required if taken as exemplar of the underlying trend should mean a 33% increase in teachers/student, yet your numbers only a 29% increase.

I acknowledge that the time references are different and that the numbers I gave only allow for the crudest of comparisons.  But the basic point remains, since we expect students to learn more and spend more time in the classroom, then if all else had remained equal, the teachers/student ratio should be higher.   That isn't to say that all in well in public schools, but your monomania on the subject seems to lead you into a distorted use of statistics to place all the blame on the teacher unions.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If you had bothered to check past posts you would have seen where I provided details on the movement of the Democrat party in Congress to the left.

Not in this thread, and if you think I'm going to check through your 10K+ posts to see if you ever backed up your point, you have a ridiculously high opinion of how much attention I pay to what you post.

By itself, all the Gallup data shows is evidence of the polarization of the political spectrum in the past decade.  It does not show how the political spectrum may have shifted.

Here is what Chris Bowers had to say on April 8, 2010, in an article entitled 'Long-term trends show Democrat Party moving to the left.'

“The trend through the decades, and over the last eleven Congress, is unmistakable: the party keeps moving to the left”.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/18195/longterm-trends-show-democratic-party-moving-to-the-left

Now this is the sort of analysis that could be used to support your claim, since it purports to include a basis that attempts to comparing policy preferences in different years.

The problem is, their basis is not immune to the problem of the wandering center, as shown by the following graph from the VoteView site that provided the data used in the OpenLeft article.



http://voteview.com/dwnomin_joint_house_and_senate.htm

Any analysis that shows that the Democrats of the Gilded Age were as liberal as the Democrats of today clearly is not using an unchanging definition of what it means to be liberal or conservative.  Instead all the VoteView data does is show with greater detail and over a longer period of time than the Gallup data did that the parties have been growing more polarized since the 1930s and -40s which was a period during which the two parties were the least polarized on economic matters.