Senate's current middle ground

[eric82oslo]

According to a new graph released by National Journal, four Senators - two from each party - are almost exactly equally moderate; those from Maine (Collins), Alaska (Murkowski), Arkansas (Pryor) and West Virginia (Manchin?). They are closely followed by the Democratic Senators from Indiana and North Carolina (Hagan), as well as McCain.

The most extreme/radical Senators? For Republicans, the most conservative Senator comes from Idaho, closely followed by South Carolina, Texas (Cruz) and Wyoming. And the most liberal Democrats represent Connecticut, Hawaii and New York. Both Senators from these three states are more or less ideologically the same by the way! So hard to tell which one is the more liberal, Gillibrand or Schumer for instance.

Independent Angus King is equally moderate-liberal as Mary Landrieu by the way. So clearly he's not going to change side anytime soon, as there are plenty of more moderate Democrats than him. Actually as many as 11 I think. And the "socialist" independent from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is actually more moderate than most Democrats! In fact, about 34 Democratic Senators are more liberal than Bernie. How socialist of him...

See where all the 100 Senators place on the scale here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/02/watch-the-senates-ideological-middle-vanish-over-the-last-two-decades/

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Schumer is one of the most liberal Senators?  Bernie Sanders more conservative than Mark Warner? Throw this joke ranking in the trash.

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

Schumer is one of the most liberal Senators?  Bernie Sanders more conservative than Mark Warner? Throw this joke ranking in the trash.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

This is why pulling a politician's voting record alone to establish his or her "idealogy" is laughably naive. Sure, Schumer turns up to and votes on all the nice prog stuff like a good NY Democrat should. But this analysis ignores that the real power in the Senate is way beyond the teeny percentage of things that are actually put up on a floor vote.

If you actually look at the farcical nature of some of the positions - Feinstein and Boxer are at the same position as each other, and both are apparently only slightly more conservative than Sherrod Brown; the fact that such people as the aforementioned California pair, the NY'ers and Reid are more right-wing than Sanders and Wyden; not to mention that meaningless of the right-left scale; and this sorry affair falls upon its shoddy foundations.

In short:

Throw this joke ranking in the trash.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Schumer is one of the most liberal Senators?  Bernie Sanders more conservative than Mark Warner? Throw this joke ranking in the trash.