For most U.S. voters, the only thing worse than calling a candidate a conservative is calling him a liberal.

Democrats view progressive as the most positive term. Republicans feel that way about comparing a politician to Ronald Reagan, and unaffiliated voters give the edge to moderate. Liberal is the only one of the five political labels surveyed that is viewed more negatively than positively, which likely explains why nearly all liberal politicians now refer to themselves as progressives.

These findings are roughly comparable to those in a survey in July 2007 after a Democratic presidential debate in which Hillary Clinton insisted she would rather be called a progressive than a liberal.

For a plurality of all voters (43%), it’s still best to describe a political candidate as being like Reagan, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty-six percent (26%) see it as a negative, while 29% regard it as somewhere in between. Just two percent (2%) are undecided.

Nearly half of men (48%) see a comparison to Reagan as a positive, as do 40% of women. Twenty-five percent (25%) of men say it’s a negative, 26% somewhere in between. Nearly one-third of women (32%) say it’s in between, while 26% view it as a negative.

The partisan divide is predictable, although the Democratic vehemence of years past has clearly mellowed. While 81% of Republicans consider a comparison to Reagan as a positive, just 16% of Democrats agree. Fifty-one percent (51%) of Democrats see it as a negative, versus three percent (3%) of GOP voters. Democrats by two-to-one view a Reagan comparison as somewhere in between.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of unaffiliated voters say being compared to Reagan is a positive, 16% say it’s a negative, and 44% see it as somewhere in between.

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Nearly as positive for a plurality of voters (40%) is to call a candidate a progressive or a moderate. Sixteen percent (16%) see progressive as a negative, and 40% somewhere in between. Eight percent (8%) view moderate as a negative, while half (50%) say it’s somewhere between the two.

Among Democrats, 64% see progressive as a positive, compared to 17% of Republicans and 32% of unaffiliated voters. For nearly half of GOP voters and unaffiliateds, it’s somewhere in between positive and negative.

Forty-five percent (45%) of unaffiliated voters say moderate is a positive, a view shared by 47% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans. Forty-seven percent (47%) of unaffiliateds say it’s somewhere in-between, and so do 58% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) say it is a positive to describe a candidate as politically conservative. Twenty-two percent (22%) see that as a negative comparison, and 40% find it somewhere in-between.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of GOP voters see conservative as a positive description of a candidate, as do 26% percent of unaffiliated voters and 16% of Democrats. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Democrats say it’s a negative. Over half of unaffiliated voters (54%) see conservative as somewhere in between, along with 42% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans.

At the low end, just 19% regard it as a positive to describe a candidate as politically liberal. Thirty-six percent (36%) say it’s a negative reference. For 41%, it falls somewhere between negative and positive.

Thirty-three percent (33%) of Democrats view liberal as a positive comparison, compared to six percent (6%) of Republicans and 14% of unaffiliated voters. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Republicans see liberal as a negative, as do 30% of unaffiliateds and 14% of Democrats. For a plurality of Democrats (48%) and a majority of unaffiliated voters (52%), it’s somewhere in between, a view shared by 24% of GOP voters.

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