The point generalizes, and Chomsky often makes it, as in an interview with an Irish reporter two years ago:
"Right before the November 2004 elections, the Program on International Policy Attitudes in Maryland and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, which does the main monitoring of attitudes on international affairs, published a couple of big joint studies. They came out right before the election. They were barely mentioned in the press but they were very striking. Again they showed that both main political parties are far to the right of the population on a whole range of important issues, ranging from the Kyoto protocol to the 'right of intervention', which the public opposes.
"The government takes a pretty conservative view of the UN Charter. Yet support for the United Nations was very strong. In fact, to my amazement, a small majority of the population thinks the US ought to give up the veto and follow general world opinion even if it doesn't like it.
"Public opinion strongly supports more social spending. Take, say, health care. It's the leading domestic issue in the United States, by far. People are really worried about it and it's a huge fiscal crisis when you have to deal with the most inefficient system in the industrialised world. A strong, large majority of the population wants some kind of national health care..."
<http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060121.htm>.
Cf., among many other examples, a more extensive account of the point: <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20041129.htm>.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Jan 9, 2008, at 5:00 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> ...
>> Both political parties are substantially to the right of the US
>> populace,
>
> What evidence do you have for that?
> ...
>> and the Democrat establishment has worked strenuously and
>> hypocritically since the 2006 election to neutralize the majority
>> anti-war sentiment. Do you have a blind-spot when it comes to the
>> Democratic party's faves? --CGE
>>