Flawed Study Ranks Obama As "Most Liberal"

[To read Stephen Schlesinger's post, "Hillary Confronts Bush on Iraq Bases", go here.]

So National Journal has published their "authoritative" list of who's who in the world of Liberality. And right on time, Barack Obama -- you know, the huge Reagan fan! -- is the undisputed number one liberal in the world. And Hillary's no slouch either: while she avoids the recognition of being labelled America's Next Top Soviet Insurgent, she comes up as the Senate's sixteenth-most liberal member.

What does it all mean? Frankly, not much more than the National Journal finding "liberals" to be scary! The whole endeavor is a twisted skein of fuzzy math and ever shifting standards. What can one make of these numbers? Clinton supposedly voted "liberal" eight more times on sixteen more votes than Obama, yet Obama is somehow "more" liberal. Maybe it's percentages, then! Obama took the "liberal position" sixty-five out of sixty-six times, according to the NJ's data. That sure seems pretty liberal, but I can't recall anyone ever suggesting that Barack Obama was somehow the reincarnation of Paul Wellstone.

So much depends upon how many votes each lawmaker actually casts. The National Journal shunts every single vote into three separate "issue categories," and if an individual member misses more than half the votes in any category, they don't receive a composite score. By this logic, absenteeism somehow magically obscures your political leanings! This wasn't a position the NJ took four years ago, by the way. As they admit, their considerations for absenteeism only came about "after Kerry was ranked the most liberal senator in our 2003 ratings despite having missed more than half of the votes in two categories." Convenient!

It really shouldn't have to be said, but let's say it: the biggest flaw with these rankings is that they purport to render a quantitative measurement to a qualitative attribute. This is something Brian Beutler takes up:

On almost any of the major votes that Obama missed, you'll find that men like Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders were usually on hand, making phone calls, rallying their colleagues, and voting the right way. More to the point, those men advocate from the floor for progressive positions, with passion, every week while Barack Obama does not.

Indeed. As Aristotle teaches in The Poetics, character is revealed through a person's deeds, and roll call votes are just one thin aspect of a Senatorial career. Some Senators rally for liberal causes. Some write and sponsor bills. Some walk the halls, working the caucus. But then there are other members of the Senate who forge compromises in committee, who tack on amendments, who fundamentally shift the nature of an individual bill toward one end of the spectrum or another. There are procedural games that are played, parliamentary maneuvers. At times, members are freed of the obligation to vote with the caucus in order to lessen the heat from constituents. By the time a bill gets voted on, any number of individuals have registered any number of effects, all of which speak more clearly to their individual "liberalism" (or lack thereof) than the vote does.

Here's an example. Back on November 6, Dennis Kucinich -- a well-known liberal -- attempted to introduce articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney. The Democratic leadership moved to kick Kucinich's bill into committee, where it could be effectively killed. They didn't do this out of kinship with Dick Cheney! They did it because they just didn't need the grief that would ensue if they took up the impeachment issue. But the Republican caucus forced a floor vote to openly consider Kucinich's bill in an attempt to embarrass the Democrats. By a close vote, the Democrats eventually prevailed, chasing Kucinich's impeachment into committee. This may not have been a vote tracked by the National Journal, but if you apply their logic to this vote, you would have to conclude that the Republicans were taking the "liberal position." Does that make any sense?

Naturally, you'll find few people in the professional set who actually believe these rankings are a pure measure of ideological bent. In the end, this is just a cheap political stunt that purports to be backed by statistics. But that won't stop the media -- who've proven themselves to be wholly inept at doing the sort of critical reporting necessary to debunk this sort of claptrap -- from using these "findings" as grist for any number of storylines. Should you buy in? We'll leave you with this: these findings state that Ron Paul is only the "178th-most-conservative lawmaker" in the U.S. House of Representatives. No sane person believes that.

Comments

[Aramingo]

Aw, c'mon, we have to demonize someone; if it weren't for liberals, we'd have to find someone else. Rotarians, for instance.

[Brettster]

I wish "liberals" wouldn't be so defensive and afraid of the word liberal. It's a good word, it means almost nothing but good things to any educated person. We shouldn't run from it, we should embrace it while at the same time making sure to define it in the best way and clarify nuances.

[GhostOfSchlesinger]

Thank you, Jason.

Difficult to portray a nuanced position on events possessed of much more ambiguity than an up-down vote on the Iraq War Authorization.

And, even if such measures were reliable, it is notable that voters on both sides of the aisle seem to be rejecting the old ideological purity tests in droves.

Seems we're placing the welfare of the entire nation above the "interest groups" that destroyed our party for a generation.

AND IT'S TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR WORD!!!

Might we look up the definition?

Even many of us will be surprised to read that definition, which describes a bent toward individual liberty, freedom of expression, and a general progressive sense.

I believe that I want to wear a t-shirt that says "I'M A LIBERAL" on the front, offering the dictionary definition on the back . . .

Maybe there should be buttons and hats . . .

Maybe they should be purple . . .

[kgrdem]

Good, the more liberal the better. The more liberal the more likely I am to vote for them. Same for my mother, who by the way is 86-years-old. I've seen all I want to see of Conservatives..they have never done anything for anyone that I can discern. If anyone answers me with "Ronald Reagan" I hope their heads explode because he never did anything for the average Joe, either. That's a myth, and a stinking one at that.

[Tellmethetruth]

Conservatives try to define liberal as a smear and slander word.

Liberal needs to go back to meaning a worker and laborer - which is 92% of Americans.

[Snowball]

Feingold/Sanders '08!

[AnninCA]

His health care plan is the least liberal offered so far.

I tend to avoid "opinions" and focus more on the actual plans proposed.

So far?

No, he's not progressive.

That's not all bad, btw, in my brain.

[olda]

A lot of conservatives don't want a president they want an ayatollah.

[Pippen]

Limbaugh, Hannity and Kristol, Fox News all are blasting away at Hillary like she's the only blockade between them and the whitehouse.

What does that tell you ?

The Neo Cons want to face Obama in the national election. Do you want to offer him up ? And take a risk of sending a green Senator against a 71 year old WAR HERO and SURVIVING POW ?!!

If you do, you've forgotten the 51% of the voting red states who put GW in the office.

You may not love Hillary's positions and she is cunning but I would rather risk her back office deals and Bill gettin tacky than another 8 years of a republican in the white house.

I know Hillary can win. She's locknloaded and they are afraid of her.

Obama is more like fresh meat.

He needs more seasoning just as JFK needed on his first run.

He'll have his turn but this one is not his.

[Ides]

So the national journal tells us what Obama's record in the Illinois and US Senate, Hillary's record in the US Senate, and basically what most of us already know from their history, their positions on the issues, and just about everything that matters...and it's not true because it's just not true?

Anyway....