That said, it’s worth looking at the historical trends for this survey, to see if this is really as unusual as it seems. Here are more data from Gallup:

Forty-two percent is the highest percentage in a long time, but it’s not much higher than last year — when 40 percent of Americans self-identified as conservative — and only somewhat higher than 2006 and 2008, when 37 percent of Americans self-identified as conservative. And if you take this in addition to the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal survey on ideology — where 38 percent of Americans self-identified as conservative — it’s not clear that there’s actually anything different about Gallup’s results. Americans always prefer to describe themselves as moderate or conservative, even when (as was the case in 1992 and 2008) they deliver the majority of their votes to liberal congressional majorities and presidential candidates.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee.

Now, RR has polled the stimulus.

Generally speaking, do you favor or oppose the economic recovery plan proposed by Barack Obama?

44% Favor
28% Oppose
27% Not sure

What will do the most to stimulate the economy– tax cuts or new government spending?

47% Tax cuts
32% New government spending
22% Not sure

Suppose the economic recovery plan changed so that it included tax cuts only and there was no new government spending. Would you favor or oppose an economic recovery plan that included tax cuts only?

37% Favor
38% Oppose
25% Not sure

Suppose the economic recovery plan changed so that it included only new government spending and there were no tax cuts. Would you favor or oppose an economic recovery plan that included only new government spending?

21% Favor
58% Oppose
21% Not sure

Message: Americans like tax cuts more than “new government spending.” Subtext: the Republican suggestions for the stimulus, which are all tax cuts all the time, is more popular than the Democrats’ spending plans. “Many Democrats are concerned that there is not enough spending in Obama’s plan,” points out Rasmussen.

The problem is that the Democrats are proposing both tax cuts and new spending. Obama’s plan, which includes both, is favored 44-28, while the Republicans’ plan is opposed 38-37. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Republicans cite this poll in criticizing the Democrats’ spending plans.

Intrigued, I called the study’s head researcher, Douglas Oxley of the University of Nebraska, to see if he agreed with this conclusion.

“In some ways [the study has] been misinterpreted,” said Oxley. He said that his study didn’t find a link between DNA and political leanings. “We could have things happen to us in the womb or later in life that could cause” physiological and ideological differences.

The study, released yesterday, tested the physiological responses of 46 participants to various threatening images, like bloody faces. It found that people who self-identified as “in favor of socially protective policies” responded much more strongly to the stimuli than people who held more liberal views on such issues as welfare, abortion, immigration, gay rights and school prayer.

The researchers concluded that people of different ideological persuasions have divergent physiological reactions, and that people with socially conservative views tend to be more shocked by potentially threatening stimuli.

“Some people have said that we’re calling conservatives ‘frightened’ or something along those lines,” Oxley said. “And we’re not. All we’re suggesting is that there’s a physiological difference between people who hold one set of political beliefs and people who hold another set of political beliefs.”

The study had its limitations — the sample size was small and all of the subjects were white Nebraskans — but it’s still a small step toward a greater understanding our ever-increasing ideological divide, even if the answer doesn’t lie in our genes.