Scientific Proof That John McCain Sucks
Since August and Oliver have chimed in to remind everyone that John McCain, contrary to popular opinion, is not a “moderate”, let me join in the fun with a little help from my partner in crime, Microsoft Excel. This is mostly a retread of a post I did last year when the Democratic establishment for some crazy-ass reason was flirting with the idea of adding McCain to the Kerry ticket. This time, I’ve mixed things up a bit and graphed the results.
As you probably know, most interest groups release Congressional Scorecards which compare the voting records of Senators and Congressmen with the group’s position and determine a percentage. Looking at these numbers, I’ve graphed the scores of seven prominent Senators in the 108th Congress (Democrats Lieberman, Kerry, Reid, & Clinton and Republicans McCain, Frist, & Santorum) to give everyone an idea of how a “maverick” like McCain compares with the leaders of his party, the Democratic establishment, and that back-stabber Joementum. For example, let’s take a look at the scores for the ACLU :
The low scores for Frist and Santorum shouldn’t surprise everybody, but McCain’s score is barely higher than theirs. The lowest Dem score on the list is still twice as much as the “moderate” McCain. Apparently McCain isn’t a “keep the government out of our lives” style of conservative (a breed I’ve never seen in the wild, but is rumored to exist). As far as the ACLU is concerned, McCain isn’t conservative.
So is everyone clear how this is gonna work? Good. Click on the graph to go to the scorecard itself. Keep in mind that the methods used by these groups vary quite a bit, so you’ll want to keep an eye on the footnotes. Next up is the only good news for McCainiacs in this little survey, from the League of Conservation Voters :
I won’t sugarcoat it, this is not an enviable score for Kerry or Lieberman. Even so, if protecting the environment is one of your pet issues, you’d still be in better hands with a Democrat like Hillary or Harry than entrusting it to the GOP. As you’ll see, this is probably the only issue in which McCain lives up to his reputation. For a good example of his true colors, we’ll go to the scores from the American Association of University Women[1] next :
Reid’s 88% is understandable considering that he’s pro-life, but that just raises the question “How anti-woman do you have to be to get only 12 percent?” As you can tell from the NAACP’s scores[2], McCain fares about as well in his support of minorities :
Next, let’s take a look at McCain’s stance on gay issues via the Human Rights Campaign’s scores[3] :
You’re reading the footnotes right? If so, then you know that the chart above probably contains a typo and that I’ve given McCain the benefit of the doubt on this one (not that it did him any good). As if homophobia wasn’t bad enough, now let’s look at how McCain fares on labor issues [4] :
Once again, McCain is only a “moderate” in the sense that his conservatism isn’t quite as extreme as Frist or Santorum. To get an idea of how conservative groups view McCain et. al., here’s some ranking from the American Conservative Union[4].
…and those self-appointed campaign managers for Jesus, the Christian Coalition[5].
So there you have it. John McCain is not mainstream, moderate, a maverick, or any other word that begins with “M”. He’s a conservative to the core who likes to fool the public into thinking otherwise. When compared to Democratic moderates like Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman, the comparison is even more striking. McCain may talk like an independent, but he votes like a Republican.
UPDATE : In the comments, MH points out that the LCV scores are skewed against John Kerry :
The low LCV rating you show for Kerry is due to the fact that LCV cuts absolutely NO slack for missing a vote – a “not present” counts the same in their scorecard as voting the wrong way. Considering that he was on the campaign trail much of 2003 and pretty much all of 2004, and the Republicans controlled the schedule for votes (and often made a point to schedule votes so as to inconvenience Democrats, especially the Democratic presidential nominee), the 44% for Kerry is far lower than his previous years’ scores, and not representative at all of his overall record on the environment. Let’s look at those prior year scores:
107th Congress (2001-2002) 92%
107th, 2nd Session (2002) 94%
107th, 1st Session (2001) 88%
106th Congress (1999-2000) 94%
105th Congress (1997-1998) 100%
Nice to see that John Kerry still has a few defenders out there.
1 : The AAUW was chosen to represent “women’s issues” because NOW doesn’t seem to have a congressional scorecard and NARAL’s only limits their criteria to two votes. It should also be noted that the AAUW gives percentages for both “Support When Voting” and “Support All Votes”. Rather than make any assumptions about voting trends or include data outside the 108th Congress, I’ve chosen to use the “Support When Voting” numbers here.
2 : The NAACP didn’t give a final score for Lieberman or Kerry, presumably because they missed a few votes during their campaigns for president. In order to give this graph as much context as the others, I’ve replaced their spots with Jim Jeffords and Ted Kennedy.
3 : The HRC shows only one positive vote by McCain, which based on the other Senators with similar voting records should be a 13%. Since I don’t know whether the percentage or the voting record is incorrect (and don’t really feel like looking it up), the graph gives Sen. McCain the benefit of the doubt and shows the higher score.
4 : This group gives separate scores for the first and second sessions of the 108th Congress. Rather than produce an average, I’ve graphed both scores.
5 : The CC does scorecards for each session of Congress like the AFL-CIO, but the scores for the seven senators selected were the same for each year, so I’ve graphed them only once.
14 comments
Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Those elusive “Keep the government out of our lives” conservatives? They’re harder to spot because they’re Libertarians, and they’re in the unenviable position of getting to choose between a party that’s currently run by religious fundamentalist lunatics (GOP), and a party that’s just run by regular lunatics (their own). In either case, the “Leave well enough alone” faction probably gets overshadowed by the lunatics in charge. Poor bastards.
Then again, a Libertarian wouldn’t bother feeling sorry for me, so I suppose I shouldn’t bother.
Comment by Briantologist — June 2, 2005 @ 2:32 pm
John McCain’s A Moderate — Not!
If you’re one of the poor benighted souls who consider John McCain to be some sort of moderate, even an almost-Democrat, you need to go read this post (complete with graphs) from Greg at The Talent Show: Scientific Proof That…
Trackback by Past Peak — June 2, 2005 @ 2:57 pm
Graphic evidence that…
“John McCain is not mainstream, moderate, a maverick, or any other word that begins with “M”….
Trackback by Upper Left — June 2, 2005 @ 4:30 pm
McCain’s sidebar comments on the filibuster deal put the stake in the heart – I will never, EVER vote for him.
Comment by Quisp — June 2, 2005 @ 4:52 pm
Thanks for the info. I have to admit I’m one of those Democrats who have been charmed by McCain in the past. Now I know better.
Comment by jim marquis — June 2, 2005 @ 5:23 pm
yep, greg great post. very informative. although i still think he’s a charmer- he no longer has my support either…
Comment by Erin — June 4, 2005 @ 10:56 am
When we say “moderate Republican”, what we mean is that we would, in fact, piss on him if he were on fire.
Comment by Hamilton Lovecraft — June 5, 2005 @ 8:44 pm
Republicans want to keep government out of our lives when it comes to poor working conditions and adequate salary (Walmart), corporations paying taxes (Cayman Islands) and lynching black people (the God fearing and misunderstood south). But when it comes to any kind of sexual activity they not only want to dictate the rules; they want a hidden camera in every bedroom.
Comment by Becky — June 6, 2005 @ 11:01 am
I was just asked to contribute to an effort to remove Nancy Peolsi from the Senate. I think that is an admirable goal. BUT I am not happy with the Republican party. They act like they did not win the last election. Bill Frist comes across as weak, with a ‘can we get along?’ attitude. The Republicans have been backed into the need for a Marriage Amendment and to kill the endless judicial Filibusters (because of the atrocious behavior of the Democrats). However, they failed at both since this party is full of compromising spineless un-principled people. I decided NOT to contribute at this time. What am I really funding? On another note, what score do the Republicans get for ‘lowering’ government spending??? Also, how about some dialogue re outsourcing skilled jobs overseas? The Republican Party scores few points at communicating their plan to really tackle these and other issues.
Jeff of NH
Comment by JCP — June 6, 2005 @ 2:29 pm
right you are.
the funny thing is that people just assume you fit the “spectrum” from left to right, and if you show up sometimes on the oposite side, you must be coming from the center.
McCain is straight forward and really is a traditionalist conservative… he’s quite conservative, he’s just honest enough to apply that all the time, he doesn’t like the way they are spending money, he doesn’t think you should trash veterans, etc, etc, none of those make him liberal in the least… it just means he has an ideology.
Comment by pyrrho — June 6, 2005 @ 3:28 pm
I’d like to see this over several periods, say, back to the 103rd Congress, to pick up the Clinton era. Any takers?
Comment by JS — June 7, 2005 @ 8:14 am
Late getting in on this, but I think alot of folk don’t see McCain as a “moderate” but as a “rational, reasonable conservative.” There’s a difference.
Comment by Tbag — June 9, 2005 @ 9:51 am
Okay, I’m VERY late here, but I just have to upbraid you, Greg, on a particular item on this otherwise excellent post.
The low LCV rating you show for Kerry is due to the fact that LCV cuts absolutely NO slack for missing a vote – a “not present” counts the same in their scorecard as voting the wrong way. Considering that he was on the campaign trail much of 2003 and pretty much all of 2004, and the Republicans controlled the schedule for votes (and often made a point to schedule votes so as to inconvenience Democrats, especially the Democratic presidential nominee), the 44% for Kerry is far lower than his previous years’ scores, and not representative at all of his overall record on the environment. Let’s look at those prior year scores:
All I’m saying is that you should’ve pointed this out. (Especially since you admonished your readers to “read the footnotes.”) Too many people these days are dogging Kerry irresponsibly – please don’t be part of it. (It’s okay to dog him when he really deserves it, btw.) Otherwise, excellent post.
Comment by MH — July 3, 2005 @ 9:18 am
The HRC doc says they double-weighted the vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. That would explain McCain’s score.
Comment by Mr. Brownstone — August 9, 2005 @ 1:39 pm