Moderate Joe
Elsewhere on the web, I've been arguing with New England Republicans about Joe Lieberman's moderate credentials.
One gentleman suggested that compared to Kerry, Kennedy, and Reid, Lieberman is, indeed, a moderate. So I checked the numbers on leading liberal indicators and threw Connecticut's Senior Senator into the mix for comparison's sake.
Here's what I found:
| SENATOR | ADA*** | NARAL | ACLU | PFAW | AVG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lieberman | 80% | 75% | 71% | 85% | 78% |
| Dodd | 100% | 75% | 60% | 77% | 78% |
| Kerry | 100% | 100% | 71% | 85% | 89% |
| Kennedy | 95% | 100% | 86% | 92% | 93% |
| Reid | 100% | 100% | 57% | 77% | 84% |
So based on the latest available "score cards" from these bright red groups, Senator Dodd (who no Republican would EVER call a moderate) and Senator Lieberman were in a stone cold tie.
Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy were (respectively) 11 and 15 percentage points higher. (No suprise there.)
And Senator Reid -- the DEMOCRATIC LEADER in the United States Senate -- was a mere 6 points higher than good Ol' Joe. (When was the last time you heard any Republican call Senator Reid a moderate?)
When the desperate Bushies say they support Joe Lieberman because he's a "moderate" or an "Independent" thinker, they're lying. (Because he's neither). They support him because he supports George Bush's war. (And, no doubt, his future war plans in Iran and Syria, as well.)
For the sake of consistency, when Senator Dodd runs for re-election, I would expect the RNC to refuse to endorse his GOP rival. After all, by current Republican standards, Senator Dodd is a moderate...
____________
***ADA - Americans for Democratic Action (.pdf)
NARAL - National Abortion Rights Action League
ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
PFAW - People for the American Way (.pdf)
2 comments:
I checked the ADA page. The average Democrat score was 94. Lieberman was 80. The average Republican score was 13.
Yeah, I didn't do a Democratic average per group. I compared the "score cards" of the listed Senators because they were the ones cited specifically.
Then I averaged their numbers out across four of the main Dem/Lib interest groups.
It was just wasting a few minutes on Sunday morning.
Joe Liberman supports higher taxes, expanded government, gay marriage, partical birth abortion, affirmative action, etc. He's no moderate. Apart from the issue of the Iraq war, he's Ned Lamont with grey hair.
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