> Whereas an accidental moderate's opinions will be scattered over a broad range, but will, like those of the intentional moderate, average to about 50. This is only the case if left and right are equally right and wrong, which is unlikely to be the case. The average place of an accidental moderate could be anywhere, even to the left of the left or the right of right right.
It's not about whether they are equally right and wrong, but if they are equally far from the median or average viewpoint. And I'd say it is very likely that they are. Almost by definition, in the sense that right and left are relative terms. That being the case, I think PG is correct that accidental moderates should tend to average in the middle. In general.
* measuring distance to know how "far" they are is hard, so hard to say how far any given position is from the "median or average" viewpoint * hard also to measure not just the distance, but how common such a position is, which you'd need to do as well * harder still to do this over many different positions * harder still when you realise that, of course, the left/right thing is an incredibly simplified (although sometimes useful) way of looking at a complicated set of topics
For any individual "moderate" it seems very unlikely that they will end up "in the middle" even across a range of political topics.
For an aggregate of all "moderates", then it'll end up somewhere, but no reason to assume that it will be in the middle of things (even if you could determine where such a middle even was).