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February 29, 2004
Someone, Anyone?
Can any one out there who actually has a subscription to National Journal tell us how they arrived at the conclusion that Kerry is the most liberal senator. From what I understand they only used about 70 "key" votes and, according to their homepage many "conservative" senators have (to the conservatives suprise) been lumped in with moderates this year.
I'm willing to bet that they had a provocative conclusion in mind (Kerry most liberal) and chose which votes to highlight accordingly. I'm also willing to bet that Kerry missed a number of these votes due to campaigning for President and therefore they might be operating on a pool of votes as small as 25 to make their decision. The margin of error (if we viewed these votes like a regular survey) would be huge.
One final note: I'm not necessarily defending Kerry. I never said there was anything wrong with being a "liberal." One possible benefit of a Kerry candidacy/Presidency is that we'll have a guy on our side whose seen as a real tough guy standing up for the left. If Kerry delivers on the Clark candidacy's promise, it will really help Democrats in the long run. This seems to be the rationale for a lot of Kerry primary supporters. It makes GREAT sense if it turns out to be true, I'm just not convinced it will be.
Posted by Chris at February 29, 2004 04:27 AM
Comments
National Journal uses votes on 32 "economic issues," 15 "social issues," and 15 "foreign policy issues." It is a pretty broad list of votes. Unfortunately National Journal hasn't published all of their data on this yet (they should later this year) but I have some theories about why Kerry ranks as the most liberal Senator, and why Edwards ranks as number two (tied with two others).
Both Edwards and Kerry missed a ton of votes during 2003. My guess, without the data to back it up, is that many of the votes they made a point of coming back for were the most partisan votes, and not the issues that they would consider crossing over on. Votes such as judicial confirmations and the Medicare vote.
Otherwise, on the Senate side, the split looks about right. Zell Miller ranks as the most conservative of those with a D next to their names with a 28 score (Chambliss at 26), but the most conservative real Democrat is Ben Nelson of Nebraska at 51. Only two Rs rank as more liberal, Lincoln Chafee and Susan Collins.
Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you have any other questions about the list or the article.
Posted by: QuackerBacker at March 1, 2004 07:08 PM
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