There have been a few great and thoughtful replies in this thread, particularly the later ones. I don't think everyone's interests and beliefs can be neatly placed on one list or the other. Politicians can't be easily placed in one category or another, reagrdless of the party they claim to belong to.

Boomer, I think there are lots and lots of people just like you. I'm one of them. I share your beliefs pretty consistently. We only differ in when we bailed off the Bush bandwagon. My first vote for a non-Republican was a "lesser of two evils" vote for John Kerry.

I think it's both laughable and sad that some think that people can be neatly placed in one category or the other -- left or right. There may be some with those orientations, but I'm guessing that most people bounce back and forth from right to left, depending on the issue or question. I guess those folks are called "moderates" or "independents" or "centrists". Thankfully, they're growing in numbers because the loyalty to the old labels and parties doesn't work anymore. Can anyone say that the governance of the last eight years has been "conservative"?

On many important issues the Bush=Cheney administration has been more liberal than the most dedicated left-winger. And based on campaign rhetoric and early first steps, President Obama fits the Conservative definition on some issues.

Choosing where one wants to be politically these days takes a lot of thought. Do I want to be a socially-liberal, fiscally-conservative Republican or a "blue dog" Democrat? Is there much of a difference?

That's why the definitions I placed in the post that began this thread were hard to figure out. Both political philosophies sounded similar. What were they? Just for the record, the first definition was that of a Liberal, the second was of a Conservative.