October 08, 2004

John Kerry's Voting Record

I hope that no one is disputing the notion that John Kerry is Liberal. Actually, I think the only person disputing that is John Kerry and perhaps some other Liberals.

Anyway, I got this email today and I have to play the devil's advocate a bit:

These ratings by 6 liberal and 6 conservative organizations indicate the percentage of times Senator Kerry voted for the organization's position. For example an 85 rating means that 85% of his Senate votes supported the interest of that particular group. The nonpartisan Political Junkie Handbook gives ratings of 15 organizations for all 535 Senators and Congressmen. http://www.politicaljunkie.org/


Please share this interesting information with your readers.

Thank you,
Michael Crane
Editor
The Political Junkie Handbook

Senator John Kerry's Senate Voting Record According to Various Interest
Groups:

Name of Group And Kerry's Lifetime Rating/
The Group's Interest:

American Conservative Union: 5%
Conservative Causes

Americans for Democratic Action: 92%
Liberal Causes

Human Rights Campaign: 100%
Gay Rights

Chamber of Commerce: 0% (2003 rating)
Business Concerns

National Taxpayers Union: 14%
Low Taxes

American Association of University Professors: 100%
Labor & Progressive Causes

Citizens Against Government Waste: 25%
Less Waste, Fraud & Abuse in Government

Public Citizen: 85%
Consumer Rights

Family Research Council: 0
Maintaining the Traditional Family Structure

Gun Owners of America: 10%
Second Amendment Rights

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence: 100%
Gun Control

NARAL: 100%
Abortion Rights

What is unclear to me is how many votes came up in which these groups had interest. I am assuming that NARAL took no official position on a large number of items since most things don't have to do with adortion.

Soooo... If I started the Flibbertigibbet club and took an interest only in one particular vote and John Kerry voted against it, I would report 0% for that single vote.

I'm sorry, but although I do not have a doubt that John Kerry is both irrational and Liberal I am skeptical about how these statistics are presented.

Posted by Flibbertigibbet at October 8, 2004 05:47 PM
Comments

I got the same spam. Makes me yearn for cialis sellers. At least those guys are caught by the spam filter.

Posted by: Jim at October 9, 2004 01:25 AM

FYI: Most of these ratings are lifetime ratings -- 20 years of votes in John Kerry's case. NARAL's rating includes any Senate vote relating to abortion and birth control, votes for public funding of abortions and birth control, the bill to ban partial birth abortion, even votes for federal court nominees approved by NARAL.

Posted by: Michael Crane at October 9, 2004 11:38 PM

Well, ignoring the fact that I am very PRO abortion and gay rights, that still fails to address the obvious distortion that these statistics present.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at October 10, 2004 01:33 PM

No distortion. You should be very happy to see that John Kerry is very supportive of abortion and gay rights: his votes in the Senate during the last 20 years were so unambiguous that NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign gave him a 100% rating. Kerry's progressive credentials cannot be challenged.
Michael Crane

Posted by: Michael Crane at October 11, 2004 10:06 PM

It's not his "progressive" creditials I question, but the bias that you're communicating with the way you've put together these statistics.

I have no doubt that he voted 100% for all issues supported by NARAL and the gay people. My question is how many issues are there total in consideration here? How many were relevant to each of the groups presented?

It's clear that you have an agenda behind the presentation of these statistics and I can appreciate that, but the fact that you hid other relevant aspects of the statistics in your email to me puts you in the same category I would put CNN or the New York Times.

To be clear, it's not objectivity I want; it's honesty.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at October 11, 2004 10:31 PM

I have but one agenda: presenting the facts. I didn't make up these ratings, I merely compiled them from the various websites of the reporting organizations.
I have other ratings from other groups concerned with other issues, but I wanted to keep the email a reasonable length. Below are a few more ratings of John Kerry's Senate voting record. Liberals should be assured that Kerry does vote "The Cause" a majority of the time, and conservatives will have their notions reaffirmed that John Kerry is, indeed, a liberal. What's wrong with that?

(These are all 2002-2003 Ratings)

National Right to Life Committtee (Anti-abortion) 0 Rating
League of Conservation Voters (environment) 84
US PIRG (Consumer Rights) 95
Christian Coalition (Religion and Culture) 0
AFL-CIO (Labor) 100
Small Business Survival Committee (Small Business) 0

Posted by: Michael Crane at October 13, 2004 01:33 PM

First of all, if you stand by the claim that you don't have an agenda, then I REALLY don't trust you. And citing more statistics out of context does not shed further light on the issue.

How many votes were there in total?
How many votes were considered by each group to be a topic of interest to them?

Just providing some additional information around these numbers would satisfy.

I think you're misunderstanding me here. I don't care that you have an agenda. You and I both know that having an agenda doesn't mean that you can't present factual information. You said your goal is to present the facts, so provide it.

My complaint is that you've left too much out of the picture you're trying to paint. I can't judge for myself what I think of these statistics because they're meaningless without the other numbers.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at October 15, 2004 05:55 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?