stats that show people voting with * X% of the time

[ButterflyBlood]

these are meaningless. Let me explain.

First of all if you look through the Senate record, you'll find loads of bills unanimously or virtually unanimously passed, and lots of procedural nonsense. This probably makes up about 2/3 of all legislation. So anyone will vote with * 2/3 of the time. This misleading stat is used in primaries too, such as the anti-Specter ads pointing out that he votes with Kerry more than 70% of the time.

Also, they weight all votes equally. A Repuke may be the only vote against some appropiations bill because of an obscurish clause in some section he didn't like that * then signs. That is counted as voting against *. Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. That counted as voting against *. And they are both equally, as one vote against * for each.

These have no validity in attacking anyone.

[w13rd0]

1. That's why we look @

certain votes:

IWR
PATRIOTAct
Bush "tax cuts"
medicare
etc...

oh crap, um, no, maybe we shouldn't