By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

At last! After all these years, I know where I am on the political spectrum.

I guess I grew up politically naive. When I was a kid, you were a Democrat or you were a Republican. In Pennsylvania, I think you had to “register” as one or the other — unlike here, where you participate in the primary of your choice, but are not “registered” as anything.

Life was simpler then. You liked coffee or you liked tea. You liked Chevies or Fords. The Phillies or the Pirates. You preferred Crosby over Sinatra, or Autry over Rogers. No one ever liked both — you had to choose. I had two parents, one of each gender, and one of each political party. Even though my favorite parent was Daddy the Democrat, he did not quite approve of FDR, and Mom the Republican couldn't stand him. FDR, I mean.

When I came of age and registered to vote for the first time in New Jersey, I identified with the Republicans. And so when we moved to Fayette County, Ga. in 1971, I asked for the Republican ballot in my first primary here — and discovered I had effectively disenfranchised myself. Every elected office in Fayette County was held by a Democrat, and most of the posts up for election or re-election were unchallenged by Republicans.

You may be sure that the next time there was a primary, I picked up a Democratic ballot. It was enough to make a political naif schizophrenic.

Since the world has turned upside down and labels like “Democrat” and “Republican” don't mean much any more, a couple of formerly European terms have come into vogue in this country. “Conservative” and “liberal” may be well-defined terms in the lexicon of some, but they merely confuse me even more.

Honestly, I don't mean to sound disingenuous here, but words are my tools and my toys, and I know that in the hands of some — was it the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland? — they mean just what their speaker wants them to mean. So, to the impartial dictionary I repair, where I find that the first three (of nine) definitions for “conservative” are these: Conserving or tending to conserve, tending to preserve established traditions or institutions and to resist or oppose changes in these, and characteristic of a conservative — a circular definition if I've ever seen one.

Well, there I am, a conservative. No one conserves more than I do — you should see the stack of paper next to my printer, every single sheet of it already used on one side — and if you don't believe I tend to preserve established traditions, just ask members of our church's Worship and Music Committee what happens when someone mentions contemporary worship styles.

To be fair, let's check “liberal:” Giving freely, generous, plentiful, ample, abundant, not restricted to the literal meaning, not strict, tolerant of views differing from one's own, broad-minded.

Now what do I do? C'est moi! These definitions are exactly my own view of myself (except that I may not be very broad-minded about some issues).

Really, how can anyone choose among these benign characteristics? I'm an environmentalist, so of course I conserve. I love tradition, and have to be careful I don't hold to the old in exclusion of the new, frequently reminding myself that Beethoven was once considered harsh and modern. And I like to think that I am open-handed and generous, not very strict, and very tolerant of the beliefs of others.

The Internet to the rescue! A friend who knows I wrestle with this conundrum pointed me to a Web site that provides an interactive test to determine exactly where one does stand on the political spectrum, and how one's position compares with the leading presidential candidates. Check GoVote.com, keeping in mind that, with the California primary looming, this site gets a lot of hits these days and may respond slowly.

Questions are grouped under individual rights, domestic and economic issues, defense and international concerns — the whole gamut. Not only did it score my position, but compared me with Bradley, Bush, Gore and McLain, and they with each other. And it turns out I voted for exactly the right man, according to my own philosophy.

But best of all, the quiz gave me an identity, a label I can wear with pride. Turns out I'm a Centrist (Do you capitalize Centrist as you do Democrat, or is it lower case like conservative?). Centrists stand for... I don't know what Centrists stand for. Not much I guess.

I think you get to be a centrist by marking mid-way the five choices that range from “support strongly” through “no opinion” to “oppose strongly.”

On global warming, human rights abuses and gun laws I have strong opinions. But capital punishment? I've always prayed I'd never be a juror on a capital crime. Abortion? I regularly thank God I've never had to make that decision for anyone.

On second thought, maybe centrist gets a small “c.” Like wishy-washy gets a small “w.”

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