Centerfield

I agree that re-articulation would help Liebermans cause. Being the catalyst that actually creates a working group would lock it up.

I'd be quite interested to know where the figure I see around the net that Lieberman votes with the Dems 90% of the time came from. It seems to have won acceptance by repetition, but I've yet to see a source, still less a contextualization (i.e., how does that compare to other Senate dems).

Try VoteSmart, Simon, though it'll take you some actual compiling. I personally think the "90%" figure is whole cloth factoid--derived by assertion, and meaningless out of context anyway. Which votes?

According to National Journal's vote rankings, Lieberman is middle-of-the-pack for Democrat senators in social and economic "liberal" voting, but second only to Ben Nelson in "non-liberal" foreign policy voting for a Dem senator. His overall NJ "liberal" ranking places him as the eighth most "conservative" Democratic Senator, right in there with Robert Byrd and Blanche Lincoln.

I'm not convinced Lieberman has to do much else besides show up. Lamont is currently pursuing a doth protest too much" strategy in the wake of the recently-foiled terrorist plot, accusing Cheney and Lieberman of an orchestrated playing of politics.

Clue for the uninitiated...when politician A accuses his or her opponent B of playing politics, A is playing politics, too, and getting whupped because B has found an especially effective attack. Make no mistake, Lamont is claiming he's offended because he doesn't have a good answer.

What's going to be funny now is watching to see who in the democratic establishment will get out front and campaign for and with Lamont. Who else thinks Hillary will come down with a permanent case of scheduling conflicts? What about Kerry? With him it probably depends on the day. I bet he's working on something reallly confusing to say that sounds supportive. Does Lamont think he's going to compile a W with Dean and Feingold lining up behind him? And perhaps Jackson and Sharpton, and maybe a guest appearance from Cindy Sheehan and maybe even Cynthia McKinney wearing he new martyr robes.

Will this be the story of the anri-phoenix, the magic bird who grants your first wish and then turns into an albatross round your neck? Stay tuned.

Those political rankings crack me up. They always seem far too conveniently malleable. In every presidential race, the democratic candidate is inevitably in the top handful of those most liberal. Almost as though the ranking shifts depeding on who most needs to be tarred and feathered. I must be wrong though. That couldn't possibly be true, that would be unethical.

Yet I have no doubt that if Lieberman were running as the winning democrat against a viable GOP opponent, someone would find a ranking that proved Lieberman is "wicked liberal."

Brian, those rankings show the Dem nominee as the most liberal because, in the two or three years leading up to the race, the contender moves his votes to the left to shore up the base for the early primary campaign season. The rankings don't change, the candidate changes how he votes. It would be interesting to check the ADA or the ACU rankings for Lieberman, Kerry, and others to see whether such a pattern shows up.

If you say so Pat.

I still don't put any stock in 6th most liberal versus 13th most liberal, and so on. I'm unconvinced they're measuring what they purport to be, although I concede there's some small amount of merit in a measure of comparative behavior... .

Of course, the embedded assumption is that loyalty is the greatest good (or greatest evil).

All they purport to measure is how the congressman votes on the issues selected by the organization doing the ranking as being important. And they do a very good job of that. On a larger issue of who is a "liberal" and who is a "conservative", their relevance depends on whether you consider the ranking organization to be fairly authoritative on defining what it means to be "liberal" or "conservative".

Those political rankings crack me up. They always seem far too conveniently malleable.

That's because everyone chooses a different "measurement" to use, or make up their own. Just so they'll show what they want them to.

So Pat, do you believe such rankings should or should not take into account why a congressperson voted for or against a given bill? Aught we to consider that many are omnibus measures and many others include compromises that a congressperson may not be willing to stomach?

For example, one might vote against an education bill because one felt it cost too much money or was too much of an imposition on local authority. Is that vote "anti-education?" Or one might, oh, let's see, vote to grant war powers authority to the President because one felt he or she needed that authority to conduct credible diplomatic relations, and then one might later vote against appropiations if they felt the foreign policy course chosen was fundamentally bad for the country. How would a hawkish and a dovish organization score such votes?

No, Brian, I think we should slavishly vote however the ACU and the ADA tell us to vote. That's clearly what I said before, right?

Brian, if you want to argue against the rankings, be my guest. But don't do it by arguing as if I said stupid asinine things which I didn't say, by asking snide, snarky "questions".

don't do it by arguing as if I said stupid asinine things which I didn't say

I'll try not to, but please recall that you said this:

All they purport to measure is how the congressman votes on the issues selected by the organization doing the ranking as being important. And they do a very good job of that.

I'll cheerfully concede it's in the eye of the beholder whether the statement above qualifies as stupid or asinine. Depends on how likely you are to view special interest groups as honest brokers of political rankings. You clearly look far more favorably on them than I do. I continue to belive that such rankings are generally too abstract to be of much concrete value, since they often boil down a politician to a single data point. I'd rather have an accounting of what is viewed as the list of a given person's 2 or 3 or 4 most serious voting failures, along with the attacked person's rationale for that vote.

So I guess what I'm saying is mthat even if such groups are, in your words, doing a very good job at crafting these single data point abstractions, they're doing a very good jonb at somnething that is unwise and dangerous to do, and giving the peopl,e they want to persuade very, very, very, little information on which to make their own judgement.

Now of course, we all know that abstractions can be a very poor substitute for true familiarity but that the real world demands that we sometimes or even often rely on such abstractions, thereby granting trust. The bottom line is that I'm more reluctant than most to grant such trust, especially to known partisan special interest groups.

Pat, if I'm interpreting you correctly, you are maintaining that they do they do a good job, right? You seem to be spending an awful lot of time defending partisanship lately, but I think I can assume that you don't support blind partisanship. Would you agree that the abstract rankings of such interest groups, while they may be necessary starter tools on occasion, have seriously limited utility for critical thinkers wishing to vet a politican?

At some point, Brian, all policy decisions must come down to a vote, for or against a particular legislative instrument. Everything else is rhetoric and explanation. Any politician capable of being elected can find tons of reasons to vote for or against a particular piece of legislation, and in doisng so make himself sound as pro-big government or as anti-tax as he pleases.

So these organizations decide which votes are the real, core litmus-test votes for the overall cause which they believe in. They're not generally kept secret. The ADA and the ACU tell the members ahead of time if the vote is particularly important to them. They tell the members ahead of time, if you want a good ranking from us, vote this way on Bill X, not that way. To the extent they have any strength, it comes from the respect (or lack thereof) which members of the party and of the voting (or at least activist) public have for that group.

If you'll go back and actually read what I wrote, you will not see me saying that these ranking organizations do a good job of helping voters elect the best candidate. I said they do a good job of measuring "how the congressman votes on the issues selected by the organization doing the ranking as being important", which is a very different thing to say. If you support the principles espoused by the ACU, then you should most definitely rely on their rankings to help determine who to vote for. If you are more ambivalent to the ACU (or the ADA, for that matter), then you shouldn't. It's pretty simple, and not at all controversial.

For that matter, the rankings can indeed provide some insight of use to centrists/moderates. A politician scoring a perfect score under either the ACU or the ADA is obviously quite committed to his partisanship, and either sincerely believes in everything that that organization believes in or has no principles and is willing to vote for everything on a party line basis. The guys with scores closer to the middle have demonstrated a willingness to not capitulate to those particular special interests, despite some fair amount of pressure for them to do so. Whether that represents principles or opportunism would require additional study.

Oh I understand all that Pat. Even so, just as you describe, the organization itself gets to decide...not you. Sso for example, if a politician decides that he can't stomach the version of the bill that's supposed to address one of his pet reform issues, and he votes against it, he gets scored as insufficiently supportive of his pet issue. Suppose for example that someone had spent years trying to reform campaign financing but felt that the compromise bill that ultimately got crafted was too restrictive of free speech rights and voted against it. Is that person "against campaign finance reform" or are they holding out for a solution that they believe makes sense?

So when you say At some point, Brian, all policy decisions must come down to a vote, for or against a particular legislative instrument. Everything else is rhetoric and explanation. i think you're encouraging people to oversimplify. What reason do we have to think that crappy half-@ssed refom is better than no reform simply because its time to vote? Special interest groups WANT to be the gatekeepers on their pet issues, and these rankings are their vehicle. Don't give 'em the keys, Ma!

BTW, I agree, as you say, that these rankings can provide some insight. That's just another way of saying that their utility is limited.

When I encourage people to look at votes, I'm encouraging them to not ignore actions in favor of rhetoric, Brian. The rankings, which I hasten to add, again (for the hard-of-understanding) I do not endorse as a sole-source guide to deciding for whom one should vote, do not just pick one vote and use that to label the congressman. They look at trends.

Suppose a guy says he's for lower taxes. But every single solitary time any bill to lower taxes comes around, he votes against it. He's always got a good reason for it, but he always votes against it. We would not be out of line in SUSPECTING (not concluding, mind you, just suspecting) that he was less in favor of tax cuts than he professes.

Votes generally require selecting among competing priorities and principles. Rarely is there a perfect bill which cuts taxes, increases federal spending on good programs, and generally makes everybody happy. The issues which are most important to the Congressman are revealed in the trend of his votes. He may say he's against pork, but if he's more in favor of getting a leadership position than he is against pork, that'll show in the votes.

And again, the ranking groups only measure what they purport to rank, and are only of value to the extent that YOU, the voter, believe that organization accurately represents your interests. To use your example of the campaign finance bill which becomes too restrictive of free speech, the organization's mark against the Congressman, as weak on campaign finance reform, is only as valuable as the credence you put in the organization's ability to reflect your OWN views of how best to battle the competing interests.

Wow Pat, I can't find much to disagree with there. It's just that I'm confused since you seem to be granting all the points I've made, but you still sound like you think we disagree.

From the beginning, my point is that one should take great care in deciding how much (or how little)credence to grant special interest groups. So when you say the following:

To use your example of the campaign finance bill which becomes too restrictive of free speech, the organization's mark against the Congressman, as weak on campaign finance reform, is only as valuable as the credence you put in the organization's ability to reflect your OWN views of how best to battle the competing interests.

I ask "wasn't that MY point?"

I do agree very much with the "watch what they do... not what they say" rubric. For sure, if someone always mouths platitudes about the virtues of tax cuts but never votes for or seriously proposes one, that's deeply suggestive of something.

It started when you would ask snide, snarky questions like this, Brian:

Pat, if I'm interpreting you correctly, you are maintaining that they do they do a good job, right? You seem to be spending an awful lot of time defending partisanship lately, but I think I can assume that you don't support blind partisanship. Would you agree that the abstract rankings of such interest groups, while they may be necessary starter tools on occasion, have seriously limited utility for critical thinkers wishing to vet a politican?

Which did not accurately represent what I had said to that point. I have wasted an enormous amount of time saying the same thing over and over in many different ways until you finally manage to accept what I said the first time around. I never once said that these organizations "do a good job" at anything other than what they purport to do, which is to reflect how often the congressman votes in accordance with the desires of the ranking organization in question. Perhaps if you would stop the snarkiness, we could avoid such misunderstandings in the future.

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