July 26, 2004
IT TOOK FOUR OF THEM TO FIGURE IT OUT?:
Where Do They Stand? (SARAH BINDER, THOMAS MANN, ALAN MURPHY and PAUL SAHRE, 7/26/04, NY Times)
Most campaigns feature efforts by the candidates to characterize their opponent as being out of the mainstream - as an extreme liberal or as part of the far right. The current presidential campaign is no exception.Thus far, most of the ideological fire has been directed at the Kerry-Edwards ticket. The Bush campaign has gotten particularly good mileage out of a National Journal analysis of roll call voting in 2003 that ranked John Kerry of Massachusetts as the No. 1 liberal in the Senate and John Edwards of North Carolina as the fourth-most-liberal senator.
Yet the senators' ratings are misleading because of the large number of votes each man missed. Mr. Kerry, for example, attended so few votes on social and foreign policy that his composite score in 2003 was based only on economic policy. Even then he was not the single most liberal senator on economic issues; it was a distinction he shared with six other senators, including Bob Graham of Florida.
So where do the Democratic nominees really fit along the left-right spectrum? Well, you get a different answer if your calculations are based on nearly all votes cast by the candidates in their Senate careers. Using this measure, we have arrayed Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards from left to right in the above figure based on their voting history in the Senate. For comparison's sake, we also have included Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, John McCain of Arizona, and the parties' median senators. We even have scores for President Bush (from his announced positions on roll call votes while president) and Vice President Dick Cheney (based on the votes he cast when he represented Wyoming in the House of Representatives from 1979 through 1988).
Assertions that the Democrats' presumptive nominees are extreme liberals fall flat. True, Mr. Kerry's voting history places him to the left of today's median Senate Democrat (Tom Daschle of South Dakota). But he is closer to the center of the Democratic Party than he is to the most liberal senators, including Mr. Kennedy. John Edwards falls just to the right of the median Democrat. In fact, he is nearly indistinguishable from Mr. Lieberman, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate in 2000.
On the other side of the partisan divide, Mr. Bush - like Mr. Kerry - is more extreme than his party's median senator (Richard Shelby of Alabama). He is also noticeably more conservative than his primary challenger in 2000, John McCain.
Did this much ink really need to be spilled to tell us that Mr. Kerry is very liberal and Mr. Bush very conservative? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 26, 2004 7:57 PM
Actually, the statement in this piece that Tom Daschle is a median Senate Democrat tells us all we need to know.
Posted by: jim hamlen at July 26, 2004 9:13 PMI looked at the web site of Keith Poole, a political scientist at U of Houston, who is supposed to have the most statistitcaly sophisticated analyses of congressional voting. His analysis of the 107th Senate showed Kerry in the Middle of the Democrat Pack. Yes he is in there with Daschle, Patsie Murray and Joe Liberman. The only fooler is Joe. I guess I have been taken in by his strong support for the WoT. He votes with the party on every thing else.
As for their claim about Bush and Shelby, Poole's Rankings in 107 are different. He has Shelby closer to Olympia Snowe than Bill Frist. His 108 rankings for 2003 show some movement to the right. McCain in particular is the 4th most Republican Senator.
Kerry missed so many votes in '03 that they couldn't determine where he stood for that year, and that's supposed to be a positive ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at July 27, 2004 1:23 AMRobert:
It's probably better to look at Poole's DW-NOMINATE scores, which rank Senators based on their entire voting history, not just one Congress. They rank Kerry as the 15th most liberal Senator.
Of course, distinguishing among people this liberal is splitting hairs. Finishing in between Leahy and Schumer hardly makes Kerry a moderate.
Tom: The NYTimes article looked at the Poole data a fact I did not discern until I read the Dead Tree edition and saw the caption on the chart (I fault the editors for inadequate citation). And whether Kerry is 15th or 25th is immaterial. Leahy, Schumer, Murray, Dashcle et al. are way to the left of me and of most Americans. My only point was that Joe Liberman, who has sensible views on Terrorism, must have the same disease as other D's on all other issues.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at July 27, 2004 12:31 PMEvery one complains about Kerry missing votes.
No one ever mentions Bush's missing vetos. Probably just an oversight.
Actually Bush is a new kind of Liberal. Don't tax, just spend, spend, spend. Restrict Free Speech during Election Campaigns? A Job for Real Republicans. Clinton had the proportions right. Loose morally, tight fiscally. Now we have the reverse. Tell me which is better government? Yeah I know. Republicans held the Congress during a lot of Clinton's term. News flash: they held Congress during all of Bush's term. Wha happened? They forget how to do it?
There is a war on and Bush in terms of fighting that particular war is one of the best Presidents America has ever had and we are lucky to have him. I find the rest of the package not so attractive. Probably because I am a small government Republican. An oddity these days no?
M:
No, an oddity always. Republicans are a big government party:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/webpage/book.htm#chaitdeficit
Let me see:
Lieberman would be different than Bush how?
He wants to tax and spend. More honest than Bush's taxing through inflation no?
From a guy sitting near the center and leaning right the only difference between Bush and the Big L. is the cultural issues.
Actually if you can believe his rhetoric he is more fiscally conservative than Bush. He believes that in order to spend you must collect an equal amount in taxes. He understands business is theengine that makes all this possible and is no against reducing friction.
Your real opposition is guys like Joe L. who can appeal to the center. Which the Republicans seem intent on purging. Just as the centerists disgusted by the Democrats begin looking for a home.
You guys are going to sorry about the way you ran this one for 100 years. The RINOs are going to join with the Joe Ls. to prvide you with 100 years of vigorous opposition.
This is really a historical decade and I'm glad I have a ring side seat.
Posted by: M. Simon at July 29, 2004 12:30 AMM:
It's always the coming era of the libertarians, but it never arrives.
Posted by: oj at July 29, 2004 6:54 AM