The most liberal ticket in history?

[dude1394]

Is this the most liberal ticket for a presidential election in history? I mean ObamaBinBiden is 1 and 3 on the liberal depth chart.



They are to the left of Bernie Sanders...who's an avowed socialist. That's some lefty heft brotha'.

[dude1394]

With his first speech out of the gate, he has to make stupid? Keep on talking about the "non-energy" policy written "for" the oil companies. I like that argument just fine.

We literally can't afford four more years of this non-energy policy written by and for the oil companies, making us more and more dependent on hostile nations fpr our ability to run this country and literally, not figuratively, literally putting America's security at risk.

[The next president] will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America, but literally, literally to change the direction of the world.

We believe that our tomorrows will be better than our yesterdays, and we believe we'll pass on to our children an even better life than the one we lived. That literally has been the American way

[Obama] made his mark literally from day one reaching across the aisle to pass legislation to secure the world's deadliest weapons,

Ladies and gentlemen, America gave Jill and me our chance. It gave Barack and Michelle their chance to stand on this stage today. It's literally incredible.

[rabbitproof]

Depending on who McCain selects, you may end up saying 'most liberal ticket in history' for both parties.....

[chumdawg]

The folks who made that depth chart, how do they define liberal?

[jefelump]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

The folks who made that depth chart, how do they define liberal?

Here's the source of the chart, as posted by Usually Lurkin in the "I think it's over" thread:

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

the National Journal ranks Obama as the #1 most liberal senator in '07 to Hillary's 16th, and ranks him 10th to Hillary's 32nd for '06. McCain is around 50-60 for '06, but didn't vote enough to be ranked in '07.

edit
06: http://nationaljournal.com/voteratin...ite&o2=desc#vr
07: http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by jefelump

Here's the source of the chart, as posted by Usually Lurkin in the "I think it's over" thread:

Thanks. I checked out those links, but I still don't see where "liberal" and "conservative" are defined. Do you know where those definitions are, if indeed they are there at all?

[Kirobaito]

Don't you love that little statement at the end? McCain didn't vote enough to be ranked last year?

[jefelump]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Thanks. I checked out those links, but I still don't see where "liberal" and "conservative" are defined. Do you know where those definitions are, if indeed they are there at all?

Here's a link to their methodology. It explains how a rating of "liberal" or "conservative" was determined on each of the roll call votes selected.

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/votera...ethodology.htm

Reading that made my head hurt. I kinda understand what they did, but not well enough to explain it. Statistical analysis is definitely not my strong suit.

[jefelump]

Originally Posted by Kirobaito

Don't you love that little statement at the end? McCain didn't vote enough to be ranked last year?

Well I'm sure it takes a lot out of an old man to get his butt out of bed and go into the office... much less cast a vote while at the office....

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by jefelump

Here's a link to their methodology. It explains how a rating of "liberal" or "conservative" was determined on each of the roll call votes selected.

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/votera...ethodology.htm

Reading that made my head hurt. I kinda understand what they did, but not well enough to explain it. Statistical analysis is definitely not my strong suit.

Yes, I read that. But nowhere does it define the terms "conservative" or "liberal."

The results of the poll are useless if no one knows what they mean.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Yes, I read that. But nowhere does it define the terms "conservative" or "liberal."

The results of the poll are useless if no one knows what they mean.

from the methodology link: "The votes in each issue area were subjected to a principal-components analysis, a statistical procedure designed to determine the degree to which each vote resembled other votes in the same category"

(very) roughly, they through all the votes into a vote sorter, which sorted based on how often people voted the same, and (again very) roughly, they got two groups, and Obama was the most prototypical of group 'A'. It sounds like they labeled that group 'liberal' because the votes were along the lines of what everyone knows is 'liberal'.

You can look at this table (http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/votes.htm) to see the votes they used.