Wednesday
I Nominated my DJ for President
False statement of the day: "In just a few years in office, Senator Obama has accumulated the most liberal voting record in the Senate." Sen. John McCain, during his speech from New Orleans last night
I wish this were true, because I'm a liberal, I'd like to elect the most liberal Senator, and I'd like it to be the case that the most liberal Senator would win the Democratic Presidential primary, but it's not. Not only is it not, but there is literally no basis for claiming that he's accumulated the most liberal voting record in this Senate over his 4 years there, it's just made up. There is a basis for claiming he was the most liberal Senator in 2007, but that basis is a very thin reed, one, obviously flawed study in which by far the main reason that Obama came out as more liberal than e.g. Feingold is that he missed 33 of the 99 votes in their sample due to campaigning, and voted in the liberal position on 65 of the 66 he voted on. Many Senators voted in the liberal position more often, but not in a higher percentage of their votes. Obviously there are arguments about the proper way to rank how liberal or conservative someone is, but one widely used tool is the DW-Nominate rankings. In those rankings, Obama was tied for the 10th most liberal Senator in the 110th Senate through December 2007, and was the 21st most liberal Senator in the 109th Senate.
These details are all interesting, but my main point is that there is no basis at all for believing the thing John McCain said, he has no possible reason to believe it is true, it's not true, and he said it anyway because he thought it would help him get votes. Don't let McCain or his supporters spread this lie.
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I wish this were true, because I'm a liberal, I'd like to elect the most liberal Senator, and I'd like it to be the case that the most liberal Senator would win the Democratic Presidential primary, but it's not. Not only is it not, but there is literally no basis for claiming that he's accumulated the most liberal voting record in this Senate over his 4 years there, it's just made up. There is a basis for claiming he was the most liberal Senator in 2007, but that basis is a very thin reed, one, obviously flawed study in which by far the main reason that Obama came out as more liberal than e.g. Feingold is that he missed 33 of the 99 votes in their sample due to campaigning, and voted in the liberal position on 65 of the 66 he voted on. Many Senators voted in the liberal position more often, but not in a higher percentage of their votes. Obviously there are arguments about the proper way to rank how liberal or conservative someone is, but one widely used tool is the DW-Nominate rankings. In those rankings, Obama was tied for the 10th most liberal Senator in the 110th Senate through December 2007, and was the 21st most liberal Senator in the 109th Senate.
These details are all interesting, but my main point is that there is no basis at all for believing the thing John McCain said, he has no possible reason to believe it is true, it's not true, and he said it anyway because he thought it would help him get votes. Don't let McCain or his supporters spread this lie.
