Gerard Baker, The Times:
"Even as Mr Obama’s party was winning votes across the country, people were expressing strong support for conservative policies. In the most-watched ballot initiatives (plebiscites) on social issues in many states, there was little sign of a radical new beginning. Voters in California, Florida and Ari-zona supported constitutional amendments to outlaw gay marriage. Voters in Arkansas banned adoption by unmarried couples. In Nebraska a measure to end affirmative action in state hiring practices passed easily. Most remarkably, for all the transformation in US politics wrought by the past four years, Americans themselves do not seem to have undergone any great ideological conversion. In 2004 exit pollsters asked voters how they would identify their politics. The answers were 21 per cent liberal (Left), 45 per cent moderate, 34 per cent conservative. On Tuesday, the same question elicited these responses: 22 per cent liberal, 44 per cent moderate, 34 per cent conservative. President Obama and his jubilant supporters in Congress will surely not need reminding that this is still a centre-right country."
