Myth of the Middle - WaPo

[groovedaddy]

The Myth of the Middle
By Alan Abramowitz and Bill Bishop
Thursday, March 1, 2007; Washington Post
The story of 2006 was that regular Americans were sick of partisan divisions in Washington. The vast and consensus-hungry middle asserted itself in November, the narrative went, finally ordering the parties and their childish politicians to stop fighting and to work together.
After the vote, bipartisanship was all the buzz, and moderation the wave of the future. But something happened on the way to the evening campfire and s'mores.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022801817.html

[Demeter]

1. Yeah, it's called Reality. n/t

[yurbud]

2. bipartisanship = shut up and do what big business tells you

[eridani]

3. True. Dems and Repubs may as well be living on different planets

At least as far as domestic issues go-

http://www.washblog.com/story/2006/6/6/7599/19327

So, what does a geek do when her DSL goes down and she can't get on line? Enter voting record data in a spreadsheet, that's what. I attended an Alliance for Retired Americans meeting last Wednesday, and got a summary of their lifetime voting ratings on issues of importance to seniors (available at http://www.retiredamericans.org ). I noticed a lot of zeros for Republicans and 100s for Democrats right off, and I wondered how the polarization would work out if I put in all the data and got means and standard deviations for members of both parties. The gap turned out to be a huge chasm, and there were not very many of either party truly in the middle.

House of Representatives.
Democrats mean = 94.6, standard deviation = 8.0, minimum value =58
Republicans mean = 5.5, standard deviation = 6.2, maximum value =33

Senators

Democrats mean = 93.3, standard deviation = 10.5, minimum value =52
Republicans mean = 8.0, standard deviation = 11.5, maximum value =69

I don't think it affected the results very much to include Bernie Sanders with the Democrats in the House, but including former Republican Jeffords skewed the results for the Senate quite a bit with his rating of 69 in the conservative Democrat range. The second highest rating for a Republican in the Senate was 35. Note that the most conservative DINO is still about 25 points higher than the most liberal RINO.

As a check of how many legislators could be considered "moderate," I did the same calculations for all Democrats with ratings less than 85, and all Republicans with ratings more than 15. And the differences are still pretty drastic, with very few Democrats (19 in the House, 5 in the Senate) in this category, and only 16 House and 7 Senate Republicans. (That last number includes Jeffords as a Republican--leave him out and the mean and standard deviation change noticeably.)

House "moderates"

Democrats mean = 75.8 standard deviation = 8.8, total number =19
Republicans mean = 22.2, standard deviation = 4.6, total number =16

Senate "moderates"

Democrats mean = 71.6 standard deviation = 13.0, total number =5
Republicans mean = 34.1, standard deviation = 16.5, total number =7
Republicans mean = 28.3, standard deviation = 6.5, total number =6 (leaving Jeffords out)

So bear in mind that when occasionally some Democrats make us mad by voting with Republicans on some issues that the majority of Democrats do not do so, and that the most conservative Democrat is more likely to be better for the interests of average citizens than the most liberal Republican by 40 or 50 points.

[Puzzler]

4. The unspoken rule is...

... when the Republicans win, it's a "mandate". But when the Democrats win, it's time for "bi-partisanship and co-operation".

-P

[ShortnFiery]

5. It doesn't even have to be bi-partisan now that the Democratic Leadership

have now seemingly rolled over on their backs and are begging for tummy rubs by The Unitary Executives.

We. Are. So. Fucked.

Remember CENTRISTS, the only things in the "middle of the road" are road pizzas and yellow lines. Please consider coming on over to to the LIBERAL side of the party? ;) :hi:

<off the the gym to burn off some angst>