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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (10040)	1/27/2006 2:38:48 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541433

The conservative groups don't like him; the liberal groups do. Hardly a definition of a "far leftie." If the left in American politics likes his votes more than almost any other Senator (current or historical) and the right dislikes his votes more than almost any other Senator than he is "a far leftie" at least within the Senate. Remember the spectrum measured is the current American political spectrum, and only counts the people that can get support in America, not the far out whackos, or for that matter intelligent people making reasonable arguments that can't get enough support to get elected representation. His liberal group ratings are among the highest in the senate, and I'm mostly used lifetime ratings so that aberrant years don't' distort the picture. His conservative ratings are among the lowest. If senior elected officials to his left are almost non-existent, than he is to the far left of the spectrum that I am considering. Perhaps you think we should expand the spectrum. Well if you consider the full left-right axis I would agree he is not far left just left, and depending on how you weigh the extremes maybe even center left but by that measure almost everyone in American politics would be at or near the center so I don't find it useful. I agree that where to place the center is an issue, but rather than trying to impose my own personal view, I figured I would use the spectrum of the members of congress, as rated by the main rating groups for the left and right and some that try to be balanced or in the middle. They all paint Kerry as being on the left when compared to other Senators. If it was just the conservatives who gave Kerry the lowest ratings, and the liberal side didn't give him near the highest, than I could agree with the claims that this scale might be biased, but that isn't the case. Groups all over the political spectrum, from left to middle to right, rate Kerry's voting history to be on the left. Tim