I disagree, this is a Bush/Cheney smear that has been repeated so
many
times it is taken as true. Take a look at his actual voting record...
for example the times his voting on defense issues has been in
accordance with Dick Cheney's (a well known leftist).
To hide his abysmal record on military appropriations, Kerry will vote
yes on every high-cost veterans benefit that comes along, and call
that "defense spending." That also explains the loyal support he gets
from scattered groups of veterans. If you care most about government
benefits, and not new equipment, then Kerry's definitely your man.
-------------------------------------
Kerry's Record Rings a Bell
By William G. Mayer
Washington Post
Sunday, March 28, 2004; Page B04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?
pagename=article&contentId=A28761-2004Mar27
Is Sen. John F. Kerry a liberal? As the presidential campaign unfolds
over the next seven months, the parties will no doubt spend a lot of
time debating this question, with Republicans insisting that he is and
Democrats just as vehemently denying it.
The question of how to measure a senator's or representative's ideology
is one that political scientists regularly need to answer. For more
than 30 years, the standard method for gauging ideology has been to use
the annual ratings of lawmakers' votes by various interest groups,
notably the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the American
Conservative Union (ACU).
The ADA, which describes itself as "the nation's oldest independent
liberal organization," was founded in 1947 by a group of distinguished
postwar liberals -- including Eleanor Roosevelt, labor leader Walter
Reuther and historian Arthur Schlesinger -- to rally support for
progressive causes. Shortly afterward, the ADA began publishing an
annual legislative score card. Every year, the ADA's Legislative
Committee selects what it considers to be the 20 most important votes
cast in each house of Congress. Senators and representatives then
receive a score ranging from 0 to 100, based on the percentage of times
they voted for the liberal position, as identified by the ADA. In 1971,
a group called the American Conservative Union began publishing a
conservative counterpart to the ADA ratings, using the same method.
The ADA and ACU ratings are valuable as yardsticks for several reasons.
Both have been around for a long time, thus providing some historical
perspective. Both groups are able to speak with some authority about
what constitutes the "liberal" and "conservative" positions on various
issues. And both are good at distinguishing between meaningful and
unimportant votes. Voters back home might be taken in if the House
passes a resolution saying that all Americans have the right to
adequate health care or a strong national defense -- but doesn't take
any action or provide any money toward that goal. The ADA and ACU
almost certainly won't.
So what do the ADA and ACU ratings tell us about Kerry? Here are the
numbers for the past 10 of his 19 years in the Senate:
YEAR ADA ACU
1994 .950
1995 .954
1996 .955
1997 .950
1998 .954
1999 .950
2000 .9012
2001 .954
2002 .8520
2003 .8513
AVG .926
Kerry's 2003 ADA score may be a bit misleading. The ADA gives each
senator five points every time he or she casts a liberal vote. Senators
get zero points if they vote for the conservative position or if they
don't vote at all. Of the 20 votes selected by the ADA in 2003, Kerry
was absent for three. He thus actually voted the liberal position on
all 17 of the votes he was present for.
Either way, Kerry's voting record is a very liberal one, according to
both rating systems. The ADA's Web site notes that "those Members of
Congress considered to be Moderates generally score between 40% and
60%." By that criterion, Kerry's record falls well outside
the "moderate" range.
The same point is borne out by a comparison of Kerry's ratings with
those of other Democrats who are often classified as moderates, such as
Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana. Breaux's lifetime average ADA score
through 2002 is 55. When Lloyd Bentsen of Texas was a senator, his
lifetime ADA score was 41. Former Georgia senator Sam Nunn had a
lifetime ADA average of 37. Al Gore had a 65 average. Joe Lieberman,
who is sometimes described as a liberal and sometimes as a moderate --
he has a generally liberal voting record but also dissents from several
important liberal positions -- has a lifetime ADA score of 76 through
2002.
At the other end of the spectrum, three senators are often singled out
as the most liberal: Barbara Boxer of California, Pat Leahy of Vermont
and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Their lifetime ADA scores through
2002 are, respectively, 96, 93 and 90 -- statistically
indistinguishable from Kerry's.
In recent weeks, a number of commentators have asserted that Kerry's
voting history is complicated to classify. The evidence doesn't bear
this out. If you were to take the numbers shown here, cover up Kerry's
name and then ask a sample of American political scientists, "I have
here a senator who in the past 10 years has had an average ADA score of
92 and an average ACU score of 6. Is he a liberal, a moderate or a
conservative?" they would have no difficulty in classifying the 2004
Democratic candidate as, for better or worse, a liberal.
William Mayer is an associate professor of political science at
Northeastern University in Boston.