The central dynamic in politics is the tug-of-war between conservatism and liberalism, and while it's always been that way, the conflict is particularly contentious these days owing to a global media culture that sees nothing wrong with taking sides. Differences are starker and less rational. In America, the rise of the Tea Party movement, which represents middle-class disgust with so-called big government, has inculcated a belief that the Obama administration is liberal, even radical. But if we apply the usual yardsticks, his policies seem centrist, in many cases conservative.

In present-day Japan, the ideological differences between the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party are mostly tactical. Much has been made of the fact that the DPJ has appropriated the LDP's idea of increasing the consumption tax, a move that caught the LDP off guard. The LDP's support of a tax increase was originally promoted to distinguish itself from the DPJ. But since taking over last year, the DPJ has thrown out or modified much of its manifesto to the point where its policies are not that much different from those of the LDP. It has basically adopted the agreement that the LDP made with the United States on moving the Futenma air base to Nago; pulled back on many of its public welfare schemes; and is now pretty friendly with the bureaucracy after having pledged to reduce its power.

In an attempt to figure out just where the DPJ and the LDP differ, the Asahi Shimbun and Tokyo University carried out a joint survey that solicited opinions from candidates of all parties for the upcoming Upper House elections and compared them with opinions of candidates from last summer's Lower House election. The results were illustrated in the Asahi on a quadrant graph where the x-axis described the range of ideology from liberal to conservative and the y-axis attitudes toward economic policy from fiscal reform to maintaining the status quo.