Meet the Dems

I like this representation of where various prominent Democrats stand with regard to the DW-NOMINATE system of ideological classification a lot. In one picture, it sums up a lot of important points including the paucity of clear substantive differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on domestic issues, the fact that liberals should appreciate Nancy Pelosi as one of the good guys, the fact that Joe Lieberman's turn toward rancid rightwingery doesn't really seem justified by his previous history in office, and the fact that Sam Nunn would be a very odd VP choice.

Comments

It is interesting data. I'd like the representation more if it didn't look like someone marked up a default excel graph in Microsoft Paint.

Also, Paul Wellstone died in 2002. I'm pretty sure he didn't vote in the 110th Congress. So that referent could use some explanation.

Posted by southpaw | July 20, 2008 5:52 PM

I was amused to read in today's New York Times magazine that the Democrats have put Howard Dean's chief of staff, religious nutjob Leah Daughtry, in charge of organizing their convention this year. I wonder what Paul Wellstone would have thought.

Posted by Mixner | July 20, 2008 5:54 PM

...the fact that Joe Lieberman's turn toward rancid rightwingery doesn't really seem justified by his previous history in office

No, what the chart suggests about Lieberman is what has always been obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology and personal animosity towards the man. Namely, that the claim that Lieberman is "rightwing" in any reasonable sense of the term is complete and utter nonsense. Indeed, the chart rates Lieberman within, or even to the left of, the "moderate" category. He's not even a conservative Democrat.

Posted by Mixner | July 20, 2008 6:02 PM

I was a little confused by some of the plots associated with this method. How is it that the Democrats and Republicans are in the same place on the "social/lifestyle" issues axis? Was that axis, in the 2D scatter plots, normalized on a per-party basis?

As to Joe Lieberman, he is (or at least used to be) more liberal (in terms of his voting record) than many Dem. favorites.

The problem is that bills don't magically appear from nowhere and legislators vote for them. There is a lot of sausage making involved, and any methodology that doesn't take into account all the sausage making is going to have, e.g., odd results like showing Holy Joe as being at least somewhat "liberal".

Holy Joe is very good at undermining even positions he claims to support (and undermining the Dems. in general) by trying to be the official Good Cop(TM) in the sausage making process (in which he makes all other Dems. seem like Bad Cops).

For instance, IIRC, Joe Lieberman voted, when it came down to the brass tacks, the liberal way in terms of the bankruptcy bill. But he was on the GOP-side when it came to all the tactical maneuvering to involved in getting that monstrosity passed without fixing it so it would be un-montrous. I don't think the DW-NOMINATE system is fully capturing all of Holy Joe's legislative sausage making, is it?

I actually don't know -- how would you quantify such a thing? I guess that's why systems like DW-NOMINATE stick to quantifying what is readily quantified (a roll call vote) even if it means Joe Lieberman ends up to the left of where he, by all rights, should be.

OTOH, what ends up happening is that you get a lot of concern trolling along the lines of "see, you hippies are being irrational -- you hate Joe Lieberman even though he's actually a liberal ... why are you so extremist?" based on rankings of liberalness that really neglect the things about which we hippies are up in arms (can hippies be up in arms about anything? hmmm ....).

Posted by DAS | July 20, 2008 6:11 PM

Wrong Mixner. Actually, what it demonstrates is how impossible this type of analysis is.

Whether you think Lieberman is liberal depends on what you think is important. A Hollywood type who is most concerned about censorship in the entertainment industry, an anti-war liberal who wants us to pursue a less bellicose foreign policy, an Arab-American who wants our Middle East policy to put more pressure on Israel, or an economic leftist who wanted to see an economic policy that is less favoring of corporate interests would all probably say that Lieberman is pretty conservative.

In contrast, an environmentalist who is really concerned about global warming, or a person whose big issue is progressive taxation or health care, might say that on the issues he or she cares about, Lieberman is a reliable liberal.

And there's no way of determining what issues should be weighted most in determining what is a "liberal" (or a "conservative" for that matter, as conservatives have similar qualms about John McCain's record).

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 20, 2008 6:15 PM

I see, by the time I finished my post, Mixner already raised my point about the effects of over-reliance on this sort of data -- "those hippies are so crazy they think Joe Lieberman is reactionary even though his voting record is pretty liberal".

Senators do more than just vote on bills sprung forth fully formed from the head of Zeus. What percent of procedural votes are counted in this DW-NOMINATE scoring system? How liberal is Joe Lieberman when it comes to the final vote? Reasonably liberal -- certainly more liberal (throughout the course of his legislative career) than Harry Reid, e.g.

OTOH, how liberal is Joe Lieberman when it comes to procedural matters? Well, Joe Lieberman is always undermining even the liberal causes he claims to support in the interest of being "bipartisan" and "wanting to bring matters to a fair and square vote" and "sausage is traif" (ignoring the yummy kosher sausage readily available, e.g., in NYC) and other such "Good Cop" excuses for undermining the agenda he claims to have.

BTW ... there is an interesting phenomenon here. I know many conservatives who claim that they are not partisan Republicans and would vote for the right kind of Democrat, and that social liberalism (as well as Democratic machine political hackery) is what turns them off about us liberal democrats (but they don't mind some economic liberalism).

But when you ask them for which Democrats they'd actually vote, they name old school, politicos like Gephardt or Joe Lieberman who -- beyond some very mean-spirited rhetoric about access to emergency contraception and some moralizing about the decline of values -- has a reasonably socially liberal voting record, IIRC ... even as he is more conservative on issues where said "I'm not a GOoPer, I'm not! I'm not!" types claim to be more sympathetic to the Democrats.

What gives here? Is the "I would vote for a Democrat" response simply not in good faith? Is the political spectrum really well internalized even (or especially) by people who claim they cannot be placed on it (so they support the more "conservative" Democrat even if, on the basis of issues, they have more in common with the liberal Democrat with whom they agree on a few economic/national security issues even as they disagree equally with Lieberman and Obama on social issues); are such people in denial about the degree to which they are economically conservative? Is it something about the cultural appeals of different candidates?

I really don't know ...

Posted by DAS | July 20, 2008 6:24 PM

dilan esper,

Wrong Mixner. Actually, what it demonstrates is how impossible this type of analysis is.

So you really think, do you, that it's impossible to conclude, on the basis of congressional voting records (or anything else, for that matter) that Paul Wellstone was more liberal than, say, Sam Nunn? Seriously?

Sure, there are cases where two individuals are so close that any conclusion about their relative positions on the political spectrum are dubious (Obama vs. Hillary, for example), but the idea that voting records do not allow for any analysis of this type is nonsense.

Based on his record in office, Lieberman is clearly not a conservative in any reasonable sense of the word. The only reason certain elements on the left ever portrayed him as such is because they got their panties in a twist over a few positive gestures Lieberman made towards the object of their all-consuming hatred, George Bush.

Posted by Mixner | July 20, 2008 6:48 PM

Indeed, the chart rates Lieberman within, or even to the left of, the "moderate" category. He's not even a conservative Democrat.

Wrong. The median DW-NOMINATE (why all caps?) rating for Democrats is -0.4. Lieberman is about as far to the right of this median as Kennedy is to the left. Insofar as we think of Kennedy as a "liberal" Democrat, this chart demonstrates we are justified in thinking of Lieberman as a "conservative" Democrat.

Over the range of the whole political spectrum, yes, Lieberman is a left-leaning moderate, not a conservative like Tancredo or McConnell. But I don't think you'd hear anybody seriously arguing otherwise.

Posted by scythia | July 20, 2008 6:49 PM

It would be interesting to superimpose a graph of where American voters stood on these same issues.

Whatever methodology is being used here, it looks like they're putting the "center" slightly to the right of Sam Nunn. Am I reading this wrong?

Posted by Alan in SF | July 20, 2008 6:51 PM

L'état, c'est moi.

Posted by Mixner XIV | July 20, 2008 6:57 PM

Wrong. The median DW-NOMINATE (why all caps?) rating for Democrats is -0.4.

Wrong. The median is about -0.35. Lieberman is at about -0.25. In other words, he's slightly to the right of the median Democrat, and on the left side of "moderate." The idea that he's a conservative is just laughable.

Posted by Mixner | July 20, 2008 6:59 PM

Re: A Hollywood type who is most concerned about censorship in the entertainment industry,

Any "Hollywood type" whose issue of primary concern, in a federal election, is censorship of the entertainment industry is, to put it charitably, a f---ing moron. Not saying anyone here falls into that category of course.

Posted by Hector | July 20, 2008 7:02 PM

But Matt you just said Obama is the most liberal nominee the Democrats had in years!

Posted by Rob | July 20, 2008 7:19 PM

Is VP prospect Nunn really to the right of Lieberman? That needs to be updated... So too the fact that Wellstone is dead.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Posted by matt | July 20, 2008 7:23 PM

Hector: "Any "Hollywood type" whose issue of primary concern, in a federal election, is censorship of the entertainment industry is, to put it charitably, a f---ing moron."

No, just selfish. Which puts him in good company with the vast majority of voters.

lieberman is a foreign policy hawk but liberal on domestic issues. That's not really the point and it's not why we hate him. we hate him because he has consistently backstabbed the democratic party and our agenda over the last eight years. He's not even a DINO at this point. The buzz right now is that he'll officially defect over to the republicans soon, and i say good riddance.

Posted by raft | July 20, 2008 7:29 PM

lieberman is a foreign policy hawk but liberal on domestic issues. - raft

And conservative on certain economic issues. But then, why do certain conservatives who are dovish on foreign policy and more moderate (if not liberal) on economic issues claim to like him better than liberal Dems with whom they at least agree on foreign policy and certain economic issues?

Do they like his (sanctimonious) style? If so, why do they complain about how "condescending" other liberals are? Are they really more "on the political spectrum" than they'd like to admit? Or are the more partisan than they like to admit and appreciate Joe Lieberman's "back-stabbing" for partisan reasons?

That's not really the point and it's not why we hate him. we hate him because he has consistently backstabbed the democratic party and our agenda over the last eight years. - raft

Yep! And certain people just refuse to get this and love to play along with Joe Lieberman's "poor me, everybody hates me because I'm the only 'serious' Dem about national security issues and I'm deeply concerned about the moral direction in which this country is going" martyrdom complex. I somehow doubt, though, that the sorts of procedural motions, statements to the press, etc., that are the heart of his backstabbing get included in a measure such as the NOMINATE measure. Which is a flaw in the measure, isn't it?

Posted by DAS | July 20, 2008 7:47 PM

It is well known that for all Senators, the most conservative Democrat is always much more liberal than the most liberal Republican. In part because dozens if not hundreds of votes have a "party line" which all Senators follow over issues that they don't have strong feelings about. There will always be a few select issues that each Senator is specifically concerned about that makes the Senator more liberal or more conservative than the norm. It is these issues, on the margins, that makes the difference.

The reason we call them conservative or liberal is because of the fact that, in all likelihood, they could be replaced with someone of the same party who would follow the party line on those hundreds of other votes while at the same time be more likely to follow the party line on those marginal issues, as well.

Posted by Tyro | July 20, 2008 7:47 PM

I was a little confused by some of the plots associated with this method.

For instance, the last one (the animated one), where on one of the axis, Congressmen/Senators are plotted according to some measure of where they fall out on those crucial issues of our time, slavery and bi-metallism. And no, I'm not making this up. "WTF" hardly seems strong enough. That's maybe the single most perplexing label I've ever seen on any graph.

Posted by monad | July 20, 2008 8:33 PM

So you really think, do you, that it's impossible to conclude, on the basis of congressional voting records (or anything else, for that matter) that Paul Wellstone was more liberal than, say, Sam Nunn? Seriously?

Mixner, it's possible to conclude that politicians whose positions are diametrically opposed are to the left or the right of the other (e.g., Nancy Pelosi is a more liberal Speaker than Newt Gingrich).

But when you are talking about whether a particular politician "is a liberal", unless the politician is doctrinaire, it all depends on what you consider important.

You are trying to fit people in a box, and a few politicians fit in the box but most have some heterodoxies. And you don't want to accept that. Just because your mind is apparently incapable of recognizing complexity doesn't mean the world is as simple as you think it is.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 20, 2008 8:39 PM

The only reason certain elements on the left ever portrayed [Joe] as [not so liberal] is because they got their panties in a twist over a few positive gestures Lieberman made towards the object of their all-consuming hatred, George Bush.

Slightly OT, but what exactly is wrong with a deep civic, political hatred for George W. Bush? Mixner's using a standard issue misdirection technique which I am extremely sick of after all these years of its incontinent 'deployment': 'It's not that W Bush is SO bad - it's the blind irrational hatred of him by Elements of the Left which is really scary'. In fact, an utter disgust and political hatred for W Bush is quite rational and easy to justify wherever you think you are on most of the imaginary political spectrum. Furthermore, if one was really interested in forestalling a real, incipient irrational crazed political hatred-movement-thing (instead of a largely imaginary one like the one in Mixner's head), one would want to frankly and honestly dispose of warranted complaints, which in the case of this 'administration' are, unfortunately, legion. But Mixner isn't really interested in that. He's more disturbed by angry citizens who have all too many good reasons for being angry, than by a manifest political disaster in DC. Libertarians...I mean engineers...I mean Libertarians...are super-smart like that.

Posted by jonnybutter | July 20, 2008 8:41 PM

I feel like Feingold's positions are for-show and like he is really untrustworthy. He's the type of congressional "progressive" Dem who votes against us when we have really good legislation and win on it, as if he wants the headlines the next day to show a smaller margin of victory for us. If Lieberman's lack of loyalty is a problem, Feingold's (in situations like I described) is a problem, too, and isn't justified so he can showboat.

Making points about what better-than-good and better-than-currently-passable legislation would be like should be left to university professors, not to the men and women whose votes are counted.

I have new posts on my blog.

Posted by Swan | July 20, 2008 9:16 PM

mm, I dunno, I don't think diagrams like this are at all illuminating, they never give an up front account of their criteria and weighting, and for those reasons, they're pretty much worthless to me. if voting 'yes' once on some random decent bill which never becomes law counts the same as voting 'yes' once to invade Iraq - as I suspect this diagram does (as do all of these other silly visual representations of non-linear phenomena), then its less than worthless.

Posted by onceler | July 20, 2008 9:21 PM

Namely, that the claim that Lieberman is "rightwing" in any reasonable sense of the term is complete and utter nonsense.

i forget, who is Lieberman actively supporting for President this year? and who can he not seem to stop actively speaking out against?

yes, he's such a liberal.

Posted by cleek | July 20, 2008 9:23 PM

Hey, do you still have a profile on 'Ric h k iss.co m'? I saw it days ago. And there were many nice pics of you. I love them. Are you still there?

Posted by after | July 20, 2008 9:39 PM

Swan - Which situations are you describing? Evidence, please. Was it his stance against immunity that makes him untrustworthy? And when have the Dems had good legislation since they re-took the majority and won on it? Certainly you don't mean the recent FISA clusterfuck. The idea that professors should be the only ones to care about better legislation is utterly repugnant, like it's some kind of quaint academic exercise to debate better policy.

It's exactly that kind of attitude that has led to the prominence of the blue dogs. If this is the difference between being a democrat and being liberal, than I've never been prouder to be liberal. And even if Feingold was somehow as bad you say he is, he hasn't sandbagged Obama with slanderous bullshit like Lieberman has.

Posted by JoePo | July 20, 2008 9:46 PM

Swan: Oh, did you get a blog? I hadn't heard. You should tell us to read it more often, so we don't forget.

Posted by tomemos | July 20, 2008 10:59 PM

That's like the third post in two days making vague, hand-wavey "Pelosi is liberal, love her" remarks, for some unclear value of 'liberal'.

DW-NOMINATE assumes that Congress operates along a single axis, conservative to liberal. Therefore, what the Democratc Congressional leadership wants (and allows votes on) is pretty definitionally liberal.

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Posted by kily | July 21, 2008 8:19 AM

There seems to be a rather glaring lack of historical prospective in this thread. The fact is that Senator Lieberman is in the tradition of Democrats who have liberal voting records on domestic issues but are hawkish on foreign issues. These include the late Senators Henry Jackson from Washington, Paul Douglas from Illinois, and Thomas Dodd (step-father of Senator Chris Dodd) of Connecticut. All three of the aforementioned Senators supported the Vietnam War, even when the consensus in the voting public turned against it.

Posted by SLC | July 21, 2008 9:29 AM

Um, Sam Nunn didn't vote in the 110th Congress either. But if you bother to follow the link within the link (which MY should have referenced), you see that that chart is "20 years of Dems" imposed on the 110th's curve. The source material is much more interesting than what MY linked to (typical).

The source material is at: voteview DOT ucsd DOT edu/Clinton_and_Obama DOT htm

Posted by zaleriana | July 21, 2008 9:38 AM

Thanks Zaleriana! The info source is fascinating.

I think one criticism is that the vote tallies include many minor procedural votes. Those tend to be very partisan and could exaggerate the ideological scores. The criticism of National Journal is that they cherry-pick votes instead of using all of the votes, but I certainly see NJ's reasoning.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein | July 21, 2008 10:35 AM

All three of the aforementioned Senators supported the Vietnam War, even when the consensus in the voting public turned against it. - SLC

And this is a good recommendation for Scoop Jackson liberalism ... how? I think about which you claim we moonbats have amnesia is actually central to our argument about the likes of Joe Lieberman. That hawkish tradition got us bogged down in 'Nam, and now it's getting us bogged down in the middle east ...

Posted by DAS | July 21, 2008 2:06 PM

"DW-NOMINATE assumes that Congress operates along a single axis, conservative to liberal. Therefore, what the Democratic Congressional leadership wants (and allows votes on) is pretty definitionally liberal."

So maybe Nunn looks right of Lieberman in part because the Democrats in Congress have gotten more conservative. Compare the vote in the Senate among the Dems. for the Gulf War, and the Iraq War--esp. given that the Gulf War was far saner & had UN approval.

It's not a bad way to measure things empirically, but it sure does not trump my own qualitative observations that Ted Kennedy reliably represents my views, and Nancy Pelosi does *not*.

Posted by Katherine | July 21, 2008 3:12 PM