Greetings. As some of you may know, I decide my level of my support of Democratic senators based on a scoring system that I devised that focuses only on bill passages and nominations (I leave out amendments and most procedural vote...Alito cloture and Ohio certification being exceptions). For my own support, I use this system versus the others (ADA, progressive punch) because I am intimately familiar with the methodology, and I get very close to the issues when I have to track down all of the votes.

But I digress. I have not done this work for Sept, which I was scheduled to do because we really needed to win and I thought that posting my scores would lead to accusations of divisiveness (they happen anyways, but I thought that those arguments would be somewhat justified at that time). But it is done, now.

Here are the scores (from best to worst).

Democratic Senator percentage

Harkin (Iowa) 82.75862069
Boxer (California) 82.75862069
Feingold (Wisconsin) 82.75862069
Kennedy (Massacheusetts) 77.5862069
Corzine (New Jersey) now Gov. 76.66666667
Lautenberg (New Jersey) 75.86206897
Durbin (Illinois) 75.86206897
Akaka (Hawaii) 75.86206897
Sarbanes (Maryland) 72.4137931
Kerry (Massacheusetts) DLC 70.68965517
Leahy (Vermont) 70.68965517
Levin (Michigan) 68.96551724
Mikulski (Maryland) 68.96551724
Reed (Rhode Island) 68.96551724
Biden (Deleware) 67.24137931
Dodd (Connecticut) 65.51724138
Wyden (Oregon) 65.51724138
Dayton (Minnesota) 65.51724138
Obama (Illinois) 63.79310345
Bayh (Indiana) DLC 60.34482759
Murray (Washington) 60.34482759
Schumer (New York) DLC 58.62068966
Inouye (Hawaii) DLC 56.89655172
Bingaman (New Mexico) 56.89655172
Dorgan (North Dakota) DLC 55.17241379
Reid (Nevada) 55.17241379
Byrd (West Virginia) 55.17241379
Clinton (New York) DLC 53.44827586
Menendez (New Jersey) DLC 50
Cantwell (Washington) DLC 48.27586207
Stabenow (Michigan) DLC 46.55172414
Kohl (Wisconsin) DLC 44.82758621
Feinstein (California) DLC 44.82758621
Leiberman (Connecticut) DLC 44.82758621
Rockefeller (West Virginia) 41.37931034
Conrad (North Dakota) DLC 41.37931034
Baucus (Montana) DLC 39.65517241
Carper (Deleware) DLC 34.48275862
Johnson (South Dakota) DLC 31.03448276
Lincoln (Arkansas) DLC 31.03448276
Salazar (Colorado) DLC 24.13793103
Pryor (Arkansas) DLC 22.4137931
Nelson (Florida) DLC 20.68965517
Landrieu (Louisianna) DLC 17.24137931
Nelson (Nebraska) DLC 3.448275862

Well...there you have it. There has been considerable movement for a few of the senators since the last time I made these calculations (Kennedy and Kerry have bifurcated where they were right with each toehr before).

Here is the journal article with my last scores.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...


Here are the 29 issues that I scored (and how I felt the issue should be voted on):
------------------------------------------
Condi confirm (nay)
Gonzales Confirm (nay)
class action law (nay)
bankruptcy bill (nay)
confirm negroponte (nay)
energy bill (nay)
CAFTA (nay)
CAFTA (2nd vote) (nay)
ohiovote (no to certification, 5 points for at least giving a speech)
firearm manufacturer immunity (nay)
confirmation of radical judges (gang of 14 = 5 pts, voting for one or more of these judges 0)
tax relief act of 2005 (tax cuts for rich) (nay)
deficit reconciliation act (spending cuts for poor) (nay)
Alito cloture (nay)
Alito nomination (nay)
Tax cut protection (favor the rich) (nay)
Extend Patriot Act (nay)
Raise limit on public debt (nay)
Flag burning Amendment (nay)
US-Oman FTA (nay)
Roberts Confirmation (nay)
Gates' confirmation (nay)
Atomic cooperation w/ India (nay)
Border Fence (nay)
Military Commissions act (nay)
Pension protection act (nay...not sure about this one, actually..Feingold and Boxer voted nay)
Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (nay)
Child Insterstate Abortion Notification Act (nay)
Stem Cell Enhancement Act (yeah)

A couple of issues listed here did not serve to distinguish between Dem senators (because they all voted together), but they were included because they were important votes (the Gates' confirmation).

Anyways...that is the Senate how I see it. If anyone is interested in doing this themselves, please PM me your email address and I will send you the Excel file to save you some research. You can then tweak it to your own tastes.

(yes, I flag DLC Senators. When I started this exercise, I wanted to know how they stood on the big issues. The senators in bold are the ones I am sure are running for Pres in 2008. I am sure I have missed a few)

He is the obvious choice for sheer comedy.

This is the fourth installment of my little project to score Democratic Senators (and to a lesser degree, Republicans) according to issues that matter to me and, ostensibly, a number of other DUers. For a brief history, I grew concerned with the methodologies of ADA when I noticed that Diane Feinstein was rated higher than Barbara Boxer. To make the argument short, I did not like the idea of scoring amendments, motions, commitee votes, resolutions, or anything else but what affected the American people directly, bill passages and nominations. Also, ADA made Congress seem far more bimodal than it seemed to me.

So I made my own system, counting only bill passages and nominations that are important to we, the online activists (or how I interpret it, anyways). As of this 109th Congress, there are 21 issues that I have found that matches these criteria. It was a simple matter to score our Democratic senators on these issues, giving 10 points to voting progressive (as I defined it), 5 points for abstaining, and 0 points for voting against the progressive position.

Here are the scores:

Harkin (Iowa).................. 90
Boxer (California)............. 86
Lautenberg (New Jersey)........ 86
Durbin (Illinois).............. 81
Feingold (Wisconsin)........... 81
Kennedy (Massachusetts)........ 81
Corzine (New Jersey) now Gov... 77
Kerry (Massachusetts).........> 76 *
Akaka (Hawaii)................. 76
Levin (Michigan)............... 76
Mikulski (Maryland)............ 76
Reed (Rhode Island)............ 76
Sarbanes (Maryland)............ 76
Biden (Deleware)............... 71
Dodd (Connecticut)............. 71
Wyden (Oregon)................. 71
Leahy (Vermont)................ 69
Obama (Illinois)............... 69
Bayh (Indiana)................. 67 *
Schumer (New York)............. 67 *
Dayton (Minnesota)............. 67
Inouye (Hawaii)................ 64 *
Dorgan (North Dakota).......... 62 *
Reid (Nevada).................. 62
Clinton (New York)............. 60 *
Murray (Washington)............ 60
Byrd (West Virginia)........... 57
Stabenow (Michigan)............ 55 *
Kohl (Wisconsin)............... 52 *
Menendez (New Jersey).......... 50 *
Bingaman (New Mexico).......... 50
Rockefeller (West Virginia).... 48
Feinstein (California)......... 45 *
Cantwell (Washington).......... 43 *
Conrad (North Dakota).......... 43 *
Leiberman (Connecticut)........ 43 *
Carper (Deleware).............. 38 *
Baucus (Montana)............... 36 *
Johnson (South Dakota)......... 33 *
Lincoln (Arkansas)............. 29 *
Pryor (Arkansas)............... 26 *
Nelson (Florida)............... 24 *
Salazar (Colorado)............. 24 *
Landrieu (Louisianna).......... 19 *
Nelson (Nebraska).............. 5 * * = DLC

Here are the issues in which I scored:
----------------------------------------------------
Condi confirmation (against; liar)
Gonzales confirmation (against; torturer)
Class action lawsuit reform (against; loss of right to court trial)
Bankruptcy bill (against; bad for middle class and poor)
Negroponte confirmation (against; death squads)
Cheney energy bill (against; oil comany profits)
CAFTA (against; bad for workers)
CAFTA (2nd vote; against; bad for workers)
Ohio vote certification (against; stolen election)
Firearm manufacturer immunity (against; big business protection)
Confirmation of radical judges (against; compromise filibuster away)
Tax Relief act of 2005 (against; tax cuts for rich)
Deficit reconciliation act (against; spending cuts for poor)
Alito cloture (against; by DUer's request at the time..normally I do not score cloture)
Alito nomination (against; asshole Bushbot)
Tax cut protection (against; favors the rich...do these people ever stop?)
Extend Patriot Act (against; anti-civil liberties)
Raise limit on public debt (against; bad for our future)
Flag burning Amendment (against; not necessary and against 1st Amendment)
US-Oman FTA (against; ANOTHER "free trade" agreement?)
Roberts Confirmation (against; those blue eyes aren't fooling anyone)

For a graphical representation of Congress, I made this:



There are lots of conclusions to be made based on this analysis:

1. Congress, by and large, is overwhelmingly right-wing and full-steam forward with the Bush agenda, as evidenced by sum of all senators in Congress being greatly in the lowest quarter of the index.
2. The Democratic caucus is bimodal with the preponderance of senators in the 70 range and in the 40 range (60% for the Bush agenda). This trend is consistent with the average score of DLC (44%) and non-DLC (72%) senators.
3. Nearly half of the Democratic senators are DLC, with the most progressive being John Kerry of Massachusetts (76%) and the leaset progressive being Ben Nelson of Nebraska (5%).
4. Joe Leiberman is typical of the DLC senators in Congress, being only 3% lower in score than the average DLC score.
5. McCain (5%) is no goddamned maverick!!
6. Lincoln Chafee IS a maverick, for a Republican.
7. The general trend for the Republican line is lock-step and full-steam ahead Bush.
8. Tom Harkin has been ranked the most progressive Senator by my methodology for four consistent quarters! Why don't we talk about him more often?
9. All senators who vote less than 45% of the time with progressives are DLC...9 are from red states, and 4 are not.

Here is a previous thread from the last time I posted these numbers. The methodology is described in more detail, as well as lots of juicy arguments back and forth.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

As a pre-emptive strike, I would like to say:

1. I did not have an "agenda" in doing this exercise other than to see how well my own method agrees with ADA and later, Progressive Punch. The opinions I have gathered over the last year derive from this exercise; they were not pre-conceived because DU can be a misama of unsupported assertions and uncriticized sources. I wanted to know where Democrats stood when it REALLY mattered to me.
2. I do not claim to be more legitimate than any othe scoring system, including ADA or progressive punch or special interest ratings. This is my methodology...for me. I only post this for others who may measure "loyalty" similarly.
3. Forgive the focus on the DLC. It was the "DLC wars" here in DU that got me started down this road in the first place. Both sides accuse each other of fabrication and spin, and both sides are right (at least by my analysis).
4. I make mistakes, so if anyone sees on or disagrees with me, feel free to sound-off. The point of this exercise is not to lecture, but to learn.


Feel free to use these numbers or this graph, ignore these numbers and this graph, congratulate me, or jump up and down yelling at me for posting this. I'll even send the Excel file to those who want it and you can tweak it to your own tastes.

Our country has always had a chequered past when it comes to dissent. We founded this country on the principle of dissent, but after those that were rebelling against the British government had finished pushing the redcoats back into the sea, they were left with being the "powers that be". After that, the American tradition of dissent quickly came into question with the odious Alien and Sedition Acts, the Civil War, Wounded Knee, the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, and the labor battles that ended the Robber Baron period of our history. In fact, every time the American government has engaged in vicious crack-downs of dissent, the American people have come back and reasserted that right, often to the benefit of society as a whole.

Dissent was frowned upon during the Nixon era and during the McCarthy trials. These periods were marked by some Americans being quite afraid of what to say, but at least those that were targeted knew who they were and the crack-down was relatively contained.

Then came George W. Bush, the most secretive and anti-Constitutional President in American history. Suddely journalists in Iraq are walking targets, his critics end up in small plane crashes or commit suicide, and those who dare to cast him in a bad light in the press soon find themselves without a job or ridiculed by a nasty and perisitent right-wing propaganda machine. George W. Bush has one message for the American people, as former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer put it "watch what you do; watch what you say". That message wasn't for the terrorists, it was for the American people. NSA wiretaps and free speech zones are testament to that message.

To the scene arrives Stephen Colbert, whose new show is often thought of as a "second fiddle" to John Stewart's "Daily Show". When Stephen Colbert took the stage at the White House Correspondent's dinner this year, everyone expected his roast of the people present to be "edgy", but still relatively safe. After all, there is an unspoken agreement among the press that if they were to point out the horrible condition this President has put our country in, then they would not be considered "fair and balanced" and would be replaced by a less ethical, but better-looking, teletype droid. Stephen Colbert grabbed the podium in the character of the host of his show and delivered a half-hour of scathing satire that blistered Bush, the press, the Generals, Karl Rove, Justice Scalia, and everyone else who has allowed this criminal admministration get away with its crimes for the last five years. And he did it with Bush sitting only five feet away!

link to the video at cooks and liars: quick time
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/WH-Dinner...

transcript here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

At first, Bush was laughing at the innocuous jokes about how Stephen worships the man and that they both feel everything in their "gut" instead of their head. Bush's smile soon disintegrated when Colbert went into a routine how "facts" mean nothing to the President...."reality" has a "liberal bias". When Colbert discussed how Bush knows how to stand on things (rubble, the ruins of New Orleans, an aircraft carrier) and stage the best photo-ops in the world, Bush had the look of Claudius watching the play within a play of Hamet. He desperately looked as if he would rise up and flee the room screaming "I need air". The tension was THAT thick.

With each successive joke, the pall and shocked silence in the room grew. Colbert ended with a film where he plays a White House Press Secretary who mockingly jokes with the Press corps until he erringly allows Helen Thomas to ask a question on the reasons for the Iraq war. The rest of the segment featured Colbert running desperately running for his life through a number of obstacles with the ostensibly frail Helen Thomas slowly advancing towards him with her pad in hand. The visual image was wonderful satire considering the White House has deliberately shut Helen out from asking questions for nearly five years (recently, they allowed her a question and she asked the Iraq war question, the theme of the video).

Then Colbert left the stage, briefly shaking Bush's hand and receiving a barely perceivable nod from the first lady. As soon as Colbert had passed the President and his wife, the look on both was visible anger. They quickly left the room amongst a din of loud conversation among the press.

Of course the next day, CNN and their cable news look-a-likes all reported the segment of the show with Bush and his impersonator (2 articles written about the Colbert speech, 300 about the Bush double). In the same fashion as yucking it up about Bush looking for WMDs under a desk, the press would rather discuss the light comedy of the night rather than the bombshell that Colbert landed in the middle of that dinner. Nevertheless, the elephant in the room cannot be ignored forever.

article discussing the press ignoring Colbert's speech.
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1146...

What Colbert did was not only brave and powerful, it followed the best tradition of dissent in American culture. Considering that dissent in times of lock-step jingoism has always led to a reaffirmation of the American tradition of freedom of speech, I would say that Stephen Colbert was one of the bravest Americans of this last weekend.

Thank you, Colbert. You have "los juevos grandes" indeed.

Many are saying that Colbert "bombed" because his audience didn't laugh much. All I can say is that Colbert's audience was the American people, not the people in the room. The people in the room were props to the Bush criminal enterprise, and Colbert decided to use them as props for his satire. They didn't appreciate it much, but then again, dissent never is appreciated by the status quo. That doesn't make dissent any less American.

more articles and blogs concerning the Colbert speech:
http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1310
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=mod...
http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Colb...
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002759....
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/ite... /

manstream article #1 in Editor and Publisher:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/articl...


*posted to add to my journal...apologies if this is yet *another* Colbert thread. I'm just getting it down while it is fresh.

Well, this is the third quarterly calculation of the "liberal" index for all of our Democratic Senators according to my "rubber meets the road" system. For those not familiar with the method, I found that ADA ratings are rather arbitrary and rarely concern issues that affect the American people directly. What's more is the ADA only puts out ratings once a year based on a backroom decision as to which 20 votes to count. In the end, ADA gave Boxer a lower rating than Feinstein in "progressivism".

So I went back and recalculated all of the Senators votes on partisan issues when it only comes to bill passage and appointment confirmations. I have been posting my numbers here on the net for a short while, but this post contains the full list as well as the methodology.

I do not ask that you take my scoring system as a "be all and end all" index. It is not. I did this for myself because there is so much rhetoric on the net concerning the DLC wars without any substance. Who are the DINO's? Who should be forgiven for the occasional trespass in the interest of big business? These numbers should at least give you a guide, or better yet, inspire you to score them on your own.

So here is the complete list of numbers, decide for yourself:

Harkin (IO) 88.9
Lautenberg (NJ) 83.3
Boxer (CA) 83.3
Kerry (MA) -DLC 77.8
Kennedy (MA) 77.8
Feingold (WI) 77.8
Durbin (IL) 77.8
Sarbanes (MD) 72.2
Reed (RI) 72.2
Mikulski (MD) 72.2
Levin (MI) 72.2
Akaka (haw) 72.2
Obama (IL) 69.4
Wyden (OR) 66.7
Leahy (VT) 66.7
Dodd (conn) -DLC 66.7
Dayton (MN) 66.7
Biden (DE) 66.7
Bayh (IN) 66.7
Shumer (NY) -DLC 61.1
Reid (NV) 61.1
Inouye (haw) -DLC 61.1
Clinton (NY) -DLC 58.3
Stabenow (MI) -DLC 55.6
Murray (WA) 55.6
Dorgan (ND) -DLC 55.6
Byrd (WV) 50.0
Menendez (NJ)- DLC 50.0
Rockefeller (WV) 44.4
Kohl (WI) -DLC 44.4
Feinstein (CA) 41.7
Leiberman (CT) -DLC 38.9
Cantwell (WA) -DLC 38.9
Bingaman (NM) -DLC 38.9
Baucus (MT) -DLC 36.1
Johnson (SD) -DLC 33.3
Conrad (ND) -DLC 30.6
Carper (DE) -DLC 27.8
Salazar (CO) -DLC 22.2
Nelson (FL) -DLC 22.2
Lincoln(AR) -DLC 22.2
Pryor (AR) -DLC 19.4
Landrieu (LA)- DLC 16.7
Nelson (NE)- DLC 0.0

These scores are all percentages of a total possible score of 180 (so far, in this session, there have been 14 controversial bills and confirmations). A senator gets a score of "10" for voting against Bush's agenda on an issue, a "5" for abstaining, and a "0" for voting with the Republicans.

Here are the eighteen issues:

1. Rice confirmation (inept) 2.7
2. Gonzales confirmation (torturer) 8.3
3. Class action lawsuit bill 5.91
4. Bankruptcy bill 5.7
5. Negroponte confirmation (criminal and murderer) (0.5)
6. Cheney's Energy Bill (1.6)
7. CAFTA I (7.8)
8. CAFTA II (two votes for it (votes changed), + important issue) (7.5)
9. Election Reform (object to Ohio vote, 5 pts for speaking out, 10 for voting with a conscious) (0.6)
10. Confirmation of radical RW judges (0 pts for voting for one of the three judges, 5 pts for being one of the 7 senators in the compromise, -10 pts for voting for TWO of these judges) (8.5)
11. Firearm manufacturer immunity from legal liability (6.7)
12. Cutting Medicaid (6.7)
13. More tax cuts for the rich (9.4)
14. Roberts Confirmation (5)
15. Alito cloture (requested by DUers)
16. Alito confirmation
17. More tax cuts for the rich (do these people ever stop?)
18. PATRIOT act passage

The number that follows the issue is an indication of how much the Democratic Senate as a whole agrees with liberal bloggers, basically. A 10 is total Democratic unity. A lower number indicates disunity (haven't calculated the new numbers yet).

I flagged the DLC members because it clearly shows that there are a few DLCers who are "okay", but the majority of them are the worst betrayers of the party.

Speaking of which, here are how the Republicans score. These are ALL of the defections on the Republican side, according to my system.

chafee 27.7%
snowe 16.6%
deWine 16.6%
voinovich 16.6%
sununu 11.1%
colins 11.1%
craig 11.1%
burr = 11.1%
kyl 5.5%
mccain 5.5%%
martinez 5.5%
gregg 5.5%
burr 5.5%
Murkowski 5.5%
frist 5.5%
hagel 5.5%

I did not give Repukes credit for abstaining....these are all true defections, but they serve to compare the Democratic scores.

So everyone enjoy the numbers and decide who the DINOs are, if any. At least this way we can easily define what a DINO is by setting a standard, not deciding issue-by-issue.