Keeping Score

Just for kicks, I’ve looked up the legislative scorecard numbers of five of the senate presidential candidates for the ACLU, NAACP, AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, and the American Association of University Women. And, just for the hell of it, I’ve included the Christian Coalition and American Conservative Union and also included a few prominent Congressional conservatives as well. For the most part these ratings are of the 107th Congress or the legislative sessions of 2001 or 2002. For those who want some more information, the group names in the table below link to the actual reports.

liberal
conservative
 ACLU NAACP AFL-CIO HRC LCV AAUW CC ACU
Edwards 60% 94% 96% 100% 68% 100% 0% 15%
Gephardt 71% 89% 88% 100% 91% 91% 0% 12%
Kerry 60% 100% 90% 100% 92% 100% 0% 6%
Kucinich 64% 89% 98% 100% 95% 73% 33% 13%
Lieberman 40% 94% 82% 100% 88% 88% 20% 20%
Delay 7% 22% 2% 0% 0% 0% 100% 96%
Thurmond 20% 12% 12% 0% 4% 0% 100% 91%
Lott 20% 12% 9% 0% 0% 13% 100% 93%
Hastert 17% N/A 7% 0% N/A 0% 100% 93%

Unfortunately, neither of the front runners in the senate race (Dean, Clark) have a comparable voting record that could be used to as a comparison. That said, I think this table does a good job of showing how most of the Democrats are pretty close as far as their voting records are concerned, especially when compared against their Republican counterparts.


posted by greg on November 10, 2003 @ 3:18 pm

6 comments

  1. Who’s Liberal Now?

    The really interesting thing about Greg Saunders’ chart of the Democratic candidate’s voting scorecards is actually in the control group. Strom Thurmond shows up to the left of Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, and Trent Lott. This is largely due to…

    Trackback by Matthew Yglesias — November 10, 2003 @ 3:42 pm

  2. Democratic Candidate Voting Records

    Greg over at thetalentshow.org tallies the voting records of the major Democratic candidates for President (sans Dean and Clark, of course) on the topics of “the ACLU, NAACP, AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, and th…

    Trackback by clarkblog — November 10, 2003 @ 5:01 pm

  3. Most striking factoid: the “most conservative” candidate, Lieberman, appears to the left of the “most liberal” candidate, Kucinich, on three of the eight scorecards, and is tied with him on a fourth.

    Comment by Jeffrey Kramer — November 10, 2003 @ 9:49 pm

  4. Jeffrey –

    Kucinich was solidly “pro-life” until an election eve conversion… The AAUW and Christian Coalition scorecards may include some anti-abortion votes.

    Comment by Alex R — November 11, 2003 @ 6:49 am

  5. This proves that Lieberman talks the talk, but when it comes to voting, he follows the party tine.

    Comment by DBL — November 11, 2003 @ 7:13 am

  6. How does the line go, “if you agree with the ACLU’s positions 50% of the time, you should be a member, and if you agree with the ACLU’s positions 25% of the time, you should be on their board of directors”?

    Comment by Skinny — November 11, 2003 @ 11:22 am

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