The Independent vote.

[Alcon]

Very interesting! Your data is a bit inaccurate, though, according to CNN's site - mostly tiny, insignificant map-shading errors. I corrected it, shaded it, and also did a map for the moderates:

Independents


Moderates


Montana was tied at >40% for the first map.

Also, here is a map of the independent vs. moderate vote:




In red-marked states, Kerry did better among independents than he did among moderates. Nevada was a tie.

EDIT: Corrected first map to reflect inversion of Wyoming numbers.

[Alcon]

Democrats consider Bill Clinton a moderate and Joe Lieberman a conservative. Therefore, Democrats believe that if they aren't socialist, then they must be moderate.

Lieberman isn't a conservative, just a left-leaning populist. Clinton is, too, for that matter.

[Alcon]

Opebo, by U.S. standards, people consider "moderate" to be inbetween the two political parties, no matter how much you'd like to pretend people see the Democrats as center-right.

I do not think moderates are per se Democrats. I just feel that Bush brought out the Republicans and managed to make "liberal" into a dirty word. This resulted in an increase in the number of self-indentified conservatives and an increase in the number of center-left Democrats identifying themselves as moderates instead of liberals.

I do not have numbers to support this; it is rather just a suspicion.