Nader and Kucinich sitting in a tree,...
Politics make strange bedfellows. Give me my donations back, Dennis. I don't think you even sent me a thank-you note, you litttle asshole.
A statistical measure of just how anti-Democrat / anti-administration Kucinich is:
fivethirtyeight.com
But what if we don't build in an exception for the so-called "liberal no's" -- that is, simply take every vote at face value? It turns out, then, that Davis is no longer the least valuable Democrat. Instead, it is Dennis Kucinich, who voted against health care, the hate crimes bill, the budget, the cap-and-trade bill, and financial regulation -- all ostensibly from the left -- in spite of coming from from the strongly Democratic Ohio 10th district near Cleveland.
Kucinich's score of -4.22 is not only worse than that of any other Democrat: it is also worse than that of all but 22 Republicans.
Obviously, I think a reasonable case can be made to build in an exception for opposition from the left, which is why I did so in the first place. On the other hand, the fact is that Kucinich isn't taking just the occasional symbolic stand: he's voting against his party on key agenda items about half the time. Perhaps by so doing, he's moving the Overton Window to the left, or perhaps he's just being a pain in the butt. We crunch numbers, you decide! |
