Political Persuasion

" ... conservative politicians systematically believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are by more that 20 percentage points on average, and liberal politicians also typically overestimate their constituents' conservatism by several percentage points." So find the authors of a recent study of data from almost 2,000 state legislative candidates and from their constituents regarding two current issues: universal health care and same-sex marriage. "A follow-up survey," they add, "demonstrates that politicians appear to learn nothing from democratic campaigns or elections that leads them to correct these shortcomings": http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/miller-stokes/08_MillerStokes_BroockmanSkovron.pdf