American Conservative Union Rates Candidates

[WillyBrandt]

The American Conservative Union has a scorecard for members of Congress. The lower the rating, the less conservative. Lieberman is "conservative" on defense and on things that make the headlines, but is usually reliably Democratic. From a favorite blog...

Well, maybe we should check and see what some actual conservatives think. Lieberman has a lifetime score of 20 from the American Conservatives Union. His score last year was also 20, which compares pretty favorably (from a Democratic perspective) to John Breaux (42 last year, 46 overall), Blanche Lincoln (40 and 23), Zell Miller (47 and 54), and Ben Nelson (55 and 53). He's also quite the liberal when compared to the Senate's Republican "moderates" - Lincoln Chaffee (53 and 47), Olympia Snowe (65 and 52), and Susan Collins (55 and 57). Jim Jeffords (6 and 26) has him beat last year, but not overall. You can find all of the ratings here.

How does he compare to other Democratic Presidential candidates?

John Kerry - 20 in 2002, 6 overall.
Richard Gephardt - 8 and 12.
John Edwards - 30 and 15.
Bob Graham - 20 and 18.
Dennis Kucinich - 0 and 13.

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/archives/001871.html

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. Kerry has a lower overall rating than Kucinich -

is that cuz of abortion?

[WillyBrandt]

2. Who knows

Possibly--but it might be a fluke. Also there is lots of tiny bits of legislation that isn't ideologically charged, but still might make it into the ranking formula for a given year.

[JohnKleeb]

4. Thats what I think could be the case

Hey yet another reason why I like Kerry as a second choice.

[DemBones DemBones]

8. Is your math wrong or is mine? If Kerry has a 20 and a 6, his

average is a 13. Dennis has a 13 and a 0 so his average is also 13.
Also Dennis's 13 is lower than Kerry's corresponding 20 and his 0 lower than Kerry's 6.

LOWER ratings mean a politician is less in line with the conservatives, meaning more liberal. So Dennis is more liberal than Kerry.

Isn't this correct?

[Touchdown]

3. And why should we be interested in what THEY think?

Don't mind me...just being your standard wise-ass!;-)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

5. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"

at least that's the reasoning...

[Touchdown]

7. And this is my pet peeve above all else.

That we take too much stock in what our idealogical opponents think. Nothing gets me angirer than a wing-nut attempting to define me, and my entire belief spectrum before he has asked even one question about me.

They push. We fall back. They insult, We explain. They accuse. We apologize.

I'm sick of it. The line's drawn here.

------------------------------------------------ <-cute huh?

[AP]

6. The link supporting this is just a link to someone else's opnion.

It' isn't a link to the ACU, whatever that is.