Exit Poll Media Shocker: Conservatives Still Outnumber Liberals

As the election postmortems continue, it seems a metaphysical certitude media representatives will cast Tuesday's results as indicative of a continued national shift to the left they believe began when the Democrats took over Congress in 2006.

However, the exit polls don't reflect such a shift at all.

In fact, there has been virtually no change to the percentage of folks claiming to be liberal or conservative in their political ideology since 2004.

Here are the relevant numbers (2004 here and 2008 here):

• 21 percent claimed to be liberal in 2004 versus 22 percent in 2008
• 34 percent claimed to be conservative in both 2004 and 2008

Interesting, wouldn't you agree? If the past two elections were indeed a reflection of a huge leftward shift in the national ethos, shouldn't there be a serious increase in the number of folks that view themselves as liberal, and a decrease in conservatives?

Another issue we're likely to hear from the media is that McCain lost because he shifted too far to the right in order to appeal to his base.

However, that's not what the exit polls show. Quite the contrary, McCain only got 78 percent of the conservative vote. And, he only received 89 percent of the Republican vote.

If McCain actually moved to the right to appeal to the base, shouldn't he have done better with that base? After all, Obama got 88 percent of those claiming to be liberal.

What might have happened if McCain actually had shifted right? Maybe he would have INDEED gotten more than 78 percent of conservatives?