My earlier sarcasm aside, grmorrison is really correct. Wingnut's ridiculous attempt to claim that family, honesty and hard work were "center-right" values had one purpose: to claim that America supports Wingnut's party.

Wingnut knows (I hope) that it's nonsense to imply or state that such qualities as honesty are right-wing virtues. But pretending they are is a good advertising technique, and has won them the subconscious support of many a gullible Wal-mart shopper.

We don't have an exchange of ideas with Wingnut. We have an advertiser. Arguing with an advertiser is arguing with a spambot, or with a TV ad yelling at you to buy exercise equipment. Then again, if honesty really is a right-wing province, then there's no point discussing anything at all with a left-winger, is there? Because leftism is dishonesty.

Please.

When broadly polled, American do certainly espouse conservative values. This has always been the case with the country at large.

Utterly false. When Americans are broadly polled about labels and asked if they call themselves "liberal" or "conservative" they choose conservative in a somewhat higher percentage.

When polled on their values, they choose what can only be called liberal or progressive, in greater numbers than what could called conservative.

Case in point: right now 75% of Americans polled want a public health option.

Not only is that not even remotely a "conservative" position, on most news outlets you'd never even hear that it was true.

Here's a link to a good debunking of that particular right wing talking point, and one excerpt, the actual post contains links at all of these figures cited:

"The latest Pew Research poll showed that only 25 percent of the public agrees with the centerpiece of the conservative tax program: making Bush's tax cuts permanent. The public also agrees by 58 percent to 35 percent that the government should guarantee "health insurance for all citizens even if it means raising taxes."

Exit poll data showed that 60 percent of voters were worried about rising health care costs and that 66 percent of those people backed Obama.

A majority of Americans also want to expand environmental protections, increase the minimum wage, recognize same-sex marriage, and end the Iraq war, to name a few. "

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/pr20081106/index.html

In saying the US is center-right, one is faced with defining the center, and then assessing where someone falls on that spectrum.

The problem with defining the center is that neither party nor most political ideologies fall uniformly within any single spectrum of ideals.

You can be infavor of personal freedom, which might make you anti-tax, anti-welfare,pro-marijuana legalization and pro-gay marriage. Two of those ideas make you a friend of the Republican Party, Two actually put you at home in a third party (neither major party actually advocates gay marriage or pot legalization).

To be conservative, is in it's simpliest definition to be against radical change in the status quo. Such a point of view is going to make you wary about the governments involvement in areas it has often not been active in, but also wary about the removal of government in areas that it is established.

As such you might think the government providing health care for those too old, or too sick to work, but likely balk at them provideing health care to everyone regardless of their status.

You may think that the government shouldn't make new laws to restrict freedoms of individuals, but worry about new laws to expand freedoms beyond their already existing status.

If we are to call Conservativism the right, then those ideas likely fall comfortably on the right. The issue comes as you approach the center, and are more willing to accept more radical change to the status quo.

On this specturm, the far right see no reason to change anything, or at least fear that change will not be positive, on the far left you have the point of view that change is required or fear that no change will be far more negative than any change that occurs. The center is everything that is between those two points, and various loyalties to the status quo and various desires for change on various issues.

If you take each political issue that exists, and mark yourself on the conservative liberal spectrum, you can imagine that many people will have a more liberal average number and some a more conservative average number (0 being the center and lets say -10 is the far left and 10 is the far right).

When you then find the median number in that grouping you are going to find where the general center of the country is, if that median number is positive we are center right, if it is negative we are center left.

All that being said, in each individual number you are going to find Democrats who score as conservatives because they feel strongly conservative about a certain subject, and Republicans who score as liberals because they feel strongly liberal about another subject.

Gay marriage is a prime example, neither party is for the right because the majority of the nation is still scoring conservativly on the issue. Even though many younger republicans and democrats favor the right, the elder generation of both parties opposes it. So on that issue it is fair to say we are a center right country, which is why both parties as a matter of platform oppose the right.

On other individual issues of course, the nation will shift left or right, but in areas where there is a clear press you are likely to find both parties siding with the majority.

As such neither party is particularly in favor of raising taxes, both parties are in favor of a balanced budget, Both parties favor change in healthcare, but on the details (as with the details on abortion) because the nation has a much wider curve related to the idea the parties disagree on how best to approach the subject.

Just looking at who gets elected is a false assessment of the relative conservatism of the nation, since throughout history both parties have harbored strong liberal and conservative voices, be they dixiecrats or square deal republicans.

The best assessment of the nature of american political ideals is just to look at the laws passed.

The U.S. has a very low tax burdern on individuals and businesses, it offers social services only to the "deserving" (the elder, the infirmed, the unemployed), Environmental regulation is imposed only after leangthy debate on the cost of the regulation and we have a massive offensive military operational capability. If these aren't conservative then I'm not sure what is.

Regardless of party these ideas have been put forward and expanded throughout history, while at the same time we have pushed forward expansions of personal freedoms, which relate to stronger civil rights protections.

You can look at the progressiveness of our social policies, but they are easily described as an outgrowth of personal freedom conservative ideology.

In that, it's not that hard to imagine that the U.S. is center right.