2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum538 - "Hillary Clinton Was Liberal. Hillary Clinton Is Liberal" - Really?
I read somewhere that Hillary and Bernie voted together 93 percent of the time when they were in the Senate, which does not match with my gut. We all know that Hillary is a DINO and that she votes with Republicans most of the time. Can someone get a REAL voting analysis to show that he is more in line with McCain, than Bernie.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/
Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate. According to an analysis of roll call votes by Voteview, Clintons record was more liberal than 70 percent of Democrats in her final term in the Senate. She was more liberal than 85 percent of all members. Her 2008 rival in the Democratic presidential primary, Barack Obama, was nearby with a record more liberal than 82 percent of all members he was not more liberal than Clinton.
Clinton also has a history of very liberal public statements. Clinton rates as a hard core liberal per the OnTheIssues.org scale. She is as liberal as Elizabeth Warren and barely more moderate than Bernie Sanders. And while Obama is also a hard core liberal, Clinton again was rated as more liberal than Obama.
Sometimes I wonder whether people are confusing Clinton with her husband. Bill Clintons statements have been far more moderate. He has also had a more moderate donor base, according to Adam Bonicas fundraising scores.
There have been a few issues on which Hillary Clinton has taken more centrist positions. She, of course, voted for the Iraq War (she now says that was a mistake). Clinton has been mostly pro free trade (although she hasnt said much of anything on the Trans-Pacific Partnership). And she has been against marijuana legalization, and seemingly remains so.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)This is why the Sanders campaign was always pointless.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)The War on Drugs? Her affinity for war criminals? or maybe her support of NAFTA?
Liberal my ass.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)None of the instances you quoted are true.
Just reciting them gives your argument no value.
Please go back to grade school and learn history.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Such hallow assertions re: "Hillary's progressive record" constitute a sorry-ass sham
to deliberately deceive the American electorate.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)northernsouthern
(1,511 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Where have you been? .. under a rock?
The Dirty Fucking Hippies Were Right!!
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Hillary is the ultimate corporatist. But why did Bernie so often follow with Hillary's lead on such issues? I want to vote for a true liberal.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-voting-history
Bernie Sanders has been increasingly direct in his attacks against Hillary Clinton's past positions. But there's only one problem with his holier-than- thou narrative: Sanders' own voting record shows he's often voted for similar measures.
Sanders and his supporters seem to consider political consistency as the main measure of a politician's character. "You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive," Bernie subtweeted Clinton last month. But Sanders has been in the House or Senate for more than 25 years, and during all that time, any politician's voting record is bound to have some inconsistencies. Sanders is no exception. At times he's voted in favor of bills on national security, criminal justice, and immigration that he says he now opposes, attacking Clinton for casting the same votes that he did.
When President Barack Obama announced his plan to shutter the controversial detention facility in Guantanamo Bay last week, Sanders sent out a press release that made sure to ding Clinton over a vote she took that included language to keep Guantanamo Bay open. "Sanders was one of only three senators to vote in 2007 against barring the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to America," the release said. "Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the amendment that kept the prison open."
It's true that Clinton voted for a resolution in 2007 that said detainees from the prison "should not be released into American society," but that same year she co-sponsored legislation that directly stated the island prison should be shut down and that some prisoners should be transferred to US facilities. But Sanders voted in favor of a 2009 bill that more directly kept the prison open. And when, early in his presidency, Obama was exploring options to close Guantanamo, the Senate voted 90-6 in favor of a measure that barred the president from moving any detainees into prisons on the US mainland. Sanders was one of the 90 who voted in favor of the measure that rebuked Obama.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)"Sanders has been in the House or Senate for more than 25 years, and during all that time, any politician's voting record is bound to have some inconsistencies. Sanders is no exception."
The other part of the answer is how 90% of the time, if you get into the weeds of the details of the legislation, what amendments may have been attached to it, etc. there is generally a decent reason for Sanders' votes.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)All of this isn't to say Sanders' attacks lack merit....And, based on her track record representing New York in the Senate, she would have likely joined Sanders in voting for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, but she hadn't yet been elected to the Senate when it became a law.
But that sort of nuanced measure of political evolution hasn't been part of Sanders' attacks against Clinton.
It totally ignores two basic fact...
Bernie fought against such measures in the 90's in a very outspoken way. The vote for this was snuck into a much larger complex budget bill to keep the government operating (and at a time when everyone was focused on the Gore/Bush recount drama).
Bernie could have pulled a Ted Cruze and voted to shutdown the government. But he was acting responsibly. That says nothing about his true positions, and the degree to which he fought for the right things back then.
AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)everything else she says for your consumption only
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)HumanityExperiment
(1,442 posts)HRC and her supporters speak and post a lot using the term but when you match records and history... not so much match the term to the person...
NewImproved Deal
(534 posts)Quite an "Evolution"...
[link:|
kerry-is-my-prez
(8,133 posts)have gone from Republican to Independent to Progressive (my boyfriend and I) If you grew up in a red area, and everyone around you is Republican, it takes a while to learn the truth. I truthfully did not really start following politics until I was in the middle of college. My parents and everyone around me were hard core Republicans.
I admire anyone who can break away from the way that they were raised politically. My own family has not spoken to me for months because of the way I have voted.
McGovern was raised by Republicans and then converted over.
Zynx
(21,328 posts)On the whole, yes, her policy platforms have always been unabashedly liberal. Look up the entirety of her voting record.
On the bulk of contested Senate votes dating back to 2001, you'll always find her solidly with the bulk of the Democratic vote. You make her sound like Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu. In fact, her record is more like Barbara Boxer.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)So sure, Clinton is a "liberal", a "progressive", a "moderate", a "corporatist third way democrat", a "centrist", or any of the other meaningless labels we tag politicians with.
Her economic ideological positions are pretty consistently center right moderate neoliberalism, she is a post New Deal Reagan Democrat. Her foreign policy ideological positions are neoconservative, she is a hawk. Her social policy ideological positions are all over the map, and appear to change as she sees fit.
kerry-is-my-prez
(8,133 posts)accusations? You do not seem to be very open-minded.... She and Bernie pretty much voted the same on most everything.
rdking647
(5,113 posts)a lot of teh sanders supporters are so blinded by their fawning at the altar of sanders that any attempt to show that hillary isnt that far from sanders on most issues is met with cognitive dissonance.
then they go ahead and announce that its either sanders or no one.
its time for them to admit they arent democrats and go and form a third party.
CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)I am trying to find a comparison of McCain and Hillary's voting records in the Senate, because I bet that they are very similar given that they are both neocons.
kerry-is-my-prez
(8,133 posts)pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)Does this mean the Republicans are now the TRUE LIBERALS?
.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)From your chart, it is obvious that the figure is lower. It is obvious from your list that Bernie and Hillary did not vote 93 percent of the time.
surrealAmerican
(11,362 posts)I'm guessing a lot of those votes were procedural and/or of trivial importance.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Because according to the same rankings, Hillary was the 11th most liberal member of the Senate in each of the 107th, 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses.
http://www.voteview.com/SENATE_SORT107.html
http://www.voteview.com/SENATE_SORT108.html
http://www.voteview.com/SENATE_SORT109.html
http://www.voteview.com/SENATE_SORT110.html
kerry-is-my-prez
(8,133 posts)pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)show us the link that shows how something there is wrong.
You got nothing, just like that reply. . . empty. . . all you do is throw out names "poppycock". Where's the substance. Tell what you disagree with and why and maybe someone would give you some credibility, otherwise, you're just another name calling empty shirt with no real substance.
But what else would anyone expect?
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)`in Wisconsin (where she got hammered) and also in W Va (where it happened again). . .
Didn't that pretty well end their claim to any serious credibility?
It did for me. . . now they're just another sellout shill.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Looking for a comparison of actual voting record, and perhaps a comparison against conservatives like John McCain.
DW-NOMINATE is a dimensionality reduction algorithm that computes a set of scores for each member of Congress. It takes as input all roll call votes since the first Congress (a very high dimensional data set), and outputs a two-dimensional representation of Congress. Very surprisingly, just one dimension accounts for much of the variation in the original data. This dimension correlates very well with our subjective evaluation of who is more liberal or conservative. In that way, it is a truly objective measure of ideology.
?1454177537
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)whereas Bernie got it right. . .
You can confuse some with nonsense but when it MATTERS, Bernie gets it right and Clinton DID NOT.
demwing
(16,916 posts)The "Plus" stand for propaganda
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Under their demographic model, Bernie always tends to do better in white states. But if you have a large minority population, Bernie has not done so well, which is weird. Afterall, didn't Bernie photobomb Dr. King:
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)the bus. . .
What does Hillary have on these people to make them give up their moral authority?
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)I see no need to denigrate the accomplishments of a civil rights icon like John Lewis just because he did not endorse Bernie Sanders. When it comes to civil rights, even Bernie cannot hold a candle to John Lewis in terms of life long commitment.
timmymoff
(1,947 posts)I'm a Christian. Not really I am an atheist , but it was very easy to say.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)Words are cheap. How did they actually vote?
demwing
(16,916 posts)Compare their differences. If their only difference was the Iraq war vote, you could say they vote together 99% of the time.
The statistic means nothing.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)LonePirate
(13,426 posts)Here I thought Repubs were the facts free party.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)LonePirate
(13,426 posts)kerry-is-my-prez
(8,133 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)"Liberal" doesn't mean what we think it means.
NewImproved Deal
(534 posts)Bingo! That's the Former First Lady...
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Lip service to social issues that Big Money doesn't give a shit about doesn't make one "liberal."
NewImproved Deal
(534 posts)[link:|
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I'm fine with her domestic social positions, but I'm not all right with her economic and international relations positions.
insta8er
(960 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)So that I can compare overlap with Bernie Sanders or someone like Mitch McConnell
insta8er
(960 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)baldguy
(36,649 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)I never thought of the Club for Growth as particularly progressive or a $11 trillion tax cut as to the left of the relatively modest tax increase proposed by Hillary, but if huge tax cuts are the new left, so be it...
?w=1024
http://www.npr.org/2016/05/13/477930933/reality-check-what-donald-trump-has-said-about-taxes-and-the-wealthy
"The interesting thing about how Trump looks at this stuff is, he sort of compromises his negotiating position right upfront by admitting that he doesn't really think this is really his plan, and that's something unusual, something I've not seen from other political candidates," says Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation.
Stephen Moore, a prominent conservative commentator and founder of the Club for Growth, who met with Trump several weeks ago, says he remains convinced that the candidate is committed to tax cuts.
"He told us in the meeting he wants to cut tax rates. He believes this is the way to grow the economy, and I take him at his word on that. I think that's been a centerpiece of what he's been talking about on taxes," Moore said.
But Moore says he and other conservatives, including Larry Kudlow and Arthur Laffer, have met with Trump staffers to discuss ways to tweak Trump's tax cuts, to mitigate their impact on the deficit. While Trump hasn't actually endorsed their ideas, his staff seems willing to consider them, Moore says.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)The most impressive graphic wins. If so, what about this graph?
baldguy
(36,649 posts)AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)And this is NO liberal. This is a war hawk.
Sparkly
(24,149 posts)but Hillary Clinton is evil.
Okay.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Armstead
(47,803 posts)Sparkly
(24,149 posts)AgerolanAmerican
(1,000 posts)a world of dragons to slay and never mind the consequences
If you'd swapped in "George Bush" instead of "Hillary Clinton" there it would be a seamless transition.
TomCADem
(17,390 posts)They only voted differently 7 percent of the time! Perhaps Bernie is a little too conservative/establishment for me as well.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2016/03/30/31-senate-bills-hillary-bernie-voted-differently/
When it comes to the two remaining Democratic candidates, their voting records arent too far apart. Former New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have voted in tandem on 93% of all the votes the made together, disagreeing on only 31 votes. The New York Times recently broke down exactly when they differed on opinion. When they did disagree, its clear that Clinton usually voted with the majority opinion, while the independent Sanders voted on his principles.
The two disagreed the most on foreign policy, with Clinton favoring an aggressive deployment of American power across the world while Sanders favored a more isolationist and hands-off role for America in the world. They also clashed on whether or not to approve the 2008 bailout of the Wall Street banks (the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP) and the dead-on-arrival 2007 immigration bill, which Sanders opposed over concerns of fraud in the guest visa program that could have hurt Vermont farmers.
Its a very interesting to see the dichotomy of the two sides laid out side-by-side, highlighting the differences in priority between the two candidates. But the important thing to note is that they agreed on a vast majority of the issues that matter to the American people and that we are very lucky to have two candidates which such nuanced and intricately designed policy platforms, as opposed to the deluge of barely disguised racism and factually incorrect drivel that spews from the Republican side of the fence.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Hard not to be comparatively "liberal" in that environment
Sparkly
(24,149 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)THe positivism of all these "ratings" systems really amazes me. They just go hick hack with boxes in a spreasheet and voila, claim they've defined left, "centrist," right, made it equivalent to conservative/liberal, assigned numbers and weights to votes, and give you a final crunched number and pretend this allows an objective ranking of something. No need to think about issues and systems and sequences at all. And this bullshit doesn't even work for them with the polling data, and now they try to muscle in on the op-ed stuff. As if anyone gives a shit what they have to say. Why is expertise assigned to this column more than to any other academic in the universe. Or for that matter, a post by a DUer?
mythology
(9,527 posts)In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined endwinning our "case"and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial.