Political Liberalism

From Carroll, Lewis, Lo, McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal:

Who is More Liberal, Obama or Clinton?: Royce Carroll, Jeff Lewis, James Lo, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal: Senator Obama is at most marginally more liberal than Senator Clinton but the difference is negligible.... The two are by no means the most liberal Democrats in Congress. There are a total of 286 Democrats in the 110th House and Senate (counting replacements). There are 88 members to Obama's left -- 8 Senators and 80 Representatives. The 8 Senators are Feingold (D-WI), Whitehouse (D-RI), Sanders (I-VT), Boxer (D-CA), Kennedy (D-MA), Brown (D-OH), Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Levin (D-MI). Between Obama and Clinton are 8 members -- one Senator, Akaka (D-HI) -- and 7 Representatives...

As I said, there is no reason for anybody to read the National Journal.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Comments

[Robert Waldmann]

I'm sure you have guessed that I have long hated alphabetical order, but now you go to far. You quote the authors names in alphabetical order "Carroll, Lewis, Lo, McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal" when you could have writen "Lewis Carroll et al."

I know you are too mature to add that "only in the looking glass world of National Journal is Barack Obama the most liberal senator" or "I believe in freedom of the press, so I wouldn't consign "National Journal" to the memory hole. The rabbit hole however ..." or "given press bias, Obama is going to have to run very fast just to stay where he is" or well I have gone on too long.

By the way, weren't you an offensive lineman in High School. You may have suspected this http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/football_and_iq.php

[Greg Worley]

Has anybody considered the possibility that Obama is in fact a "Rockefeller Republican?" I'd be interested in a comparison of the positions of Obama and the liberal Republicans of the 60's. Insofar as that's possible.

[Greg Worley]

Has anybody considered the possibility that Obama is in fact a "Rockefeller Republican?" I'd be interested in a comparison of the positions of Obama and the liberal Republicans of the 60's. Insofar as that's possible.

[baileyman]

No description of HOW these charts were generated. But worse than that, no where are the American people represented. They ain't "in the middle" you see here. Usually well left of Hillary and substantially left of Obama.

[ogmb]

"when you could have writen "Lewis Carroll et al.""

Seems like Political Science has reached the stage where, just like in the life sciences, the principal investigators are mentioned last.

[ogmb]

"No description of HOW these charts were generated."

Huh? The Poole & Rosenthal series of NOMINATE scores are just about the most meticulously documented ideology scores out there. If you can't find the documentation it's because you didn't look.

http://voteview.com/

[Eric Crampton]

I'm with OGMB here: the Poole & Rosenthal methodology is bog-standard.

What I hadn't known is that McCain is slightly closer to centre than is Obama -- different sides of centre, but McCain closer in absolute value. Have upweighted probability of McCain win from 30% to 33. Off to InTrade...

[economistmom]

I look at the graph and sigh... where is the center? No wonder Congress and the Administration can't get anything done. What will the next President--whether Obama or McCain--do to bring the humps closer together?

[kao_hsien_chih]

A few technical pointers:

1. There are in fact a billion co-authors on the paper and they are listed alphabetically. Carroll and Lewis are separate people.

2. Technically, NOMINATE in its various incarnations captures aggregate "likeness" of voting records, NOT ideologies. They capture "ideology" only if you assume the voting record is principally the product of the legislators' "ideologies" and not much else--a highly dubious assumption under many circumstances. (the fact that so many people, both political scientists and others, think it somehow captures "ideology" is a sad state of affairs.)

3. Even if legislators have similar aggregate voting records, there may be significant differences in their votes on specific bills. More interesting situations arise when Clinton, Obama, or McCain voted in a manner inconsistent with their aggregate records. In fact, given that, these days, most legislators in each party have rather similar aggregate voting records, these "exceptions" where each candidate broke from the pack might be far more informative about these guys than just bandying about their average behavior.

4. IIRC, the Carroll et al paper make this very point: that McCain's aggregate score is deceptive because he really did play up to his reputation--at least in recent years. The variance on his estimated NOMINATE score is through the roof, for example.