Policy Prefs: I’m Right at the Peak of the Common Man’s Bell Curve. Where Are You?

The idea of democracy is to give the people what they want, right?

Ezra Klein points us to a great study by Ray LaRaja and Brian Schnaffer examining policy preferences by political donors (5% of the population) vs. non-donors (95%).

Here’s my rendition of the results:

Whose preferences would you say are embodied in our current government?

Non-donors as a group are pretty coherent, and seem to give a good representation of what Americans want.

Donors, perceived as an entity, not so much — the group is downright schizophrenic, in particular due to that anomalous bulge at the right. And that 5% or .5% determines what we get — not the 95%. (Money? Pernicious? Feh.)

Now: ask yourself where the self-professed liberals and conservatives that you know land on the left-hand graph.

Just sayin’.

Cross-posted at Asymptosis.