Scott Brown is a more liberal Republican than Dede Scozzafava (so says Chicago Liberal professor)

Boris Shor's Web log ^ | 01/15/2010 | Boris Shor, Ph.D

[SeekAndFind]

A special Senate election is being held next Tuesday in Massachusetts to finish Edward Kennedy’s term. The candidates are Martha Coakley (D), and State Senator Scott P. Brown (R).

The election is particularly noteworthy for a number of reasons. First, recent polls show Brown matching or even exceeding Coakley’s electoral support, in one of the most liberal states in the entire country (and one that hasn’t elected a Republican in four decades). See Pollster.com’s aggregation of polls here, and Intrade’s political market for the election here. Second, the consequences of a Brown victory could be the derailment of the Democratic health care reform proposal, if all Senate Republicans maintain party unity.

To my mind, the election is fascinating for another reason. Brown is attracting very positive national and state Republican and conservative attention. On the other hand, State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava attracted very negative attention from conservatives in her special election campaign for the 23rd Congressional District of New York.

Brown is actually a liberal Republican who is to be found to the left of Dede Scozzafava! So why, then, the enthusiasm gap in support for the two? This post documents this assertion, and then answers this puzzle.

Citing my ongoing research on ideology in state legislatures in an earlier blog post, I made some waves by arguing that Scozzafava was actually a conservative Republican in a particular context. That context was the New York State legislature, where Republicans are exceedingly liberal relative to the rest of the country. In fact, she was actually located slightly to the right of the average Republican in the legislature. Despite this, there was a firestorm of opposition to her, leading to an insurgent challenge by Doug Hoffman under the Conservative Party label and her subsequent withdrawal from the campaign.

What about Scott Brown? How liberal or conservative is he? We have evidence from multiple sources. The Boston Globe, in its editorial endorsing Coakley, called Brown “in the mode of the national GOP.” Liberal bloggers have tried to tie him to the Tea Party movement, making him out to be very conservative. Chuck Shumer called him “far-right.”

In 2002, he filled out a Votesmart survey on his policy positions in the context of running for the State Senate. Looking through the answers doesn’t reveal too much beyond that he is a pro-choice, anti-tax, pro-gun Republican. His interest group ratings are all over the map. Business and gun rights groups typically rate him very highly, labor and and environmental groups have rated him both middling and high over time. The teacher’s union rated him low in 2001, and high in 2005.

All in all, a very confusing assessment, and quite imprecise. So how do we compare Brown to other state legislators, or more generally to other politicians across the country? My research, along with Princeton’s Nolan McCarty, allows us to make precisely these comparisons. Essentially, I use the entirety of state legislative voting records across the country, and I make them comparable by calibrating them through Project Votesmart’s candidate surveys.

By doing so, I can estimate Brown’s ideological score very precisely. It turns out that his score is –0.17, compared with her score of 0.02. Liberals have lower scores; conservatives higher ones.

Brown’s score puts him at the 34th percentile of his party in Massachusetts over the 1995-2006 time period. In other words, two thirds of other Massachusetts Republican state legislators were more conservative than he was. This is evidence for my claim that he’s a liberal even in his own party. What’s remarkable about this is the fact that Massachusetts Republicans are the most, or nearly the most, liberal Republicans in the entire country!

Of course, while the Republicans here are liberal, Democrats are incredibly liberal. In comparison to them, Brown is a conservative. He was also the most conservative of the tiny handful of Republican State Senators.

Perhaps the most important context in which Brown can be considered a conservative is the electoral one. We’re talking about Massachusetts here, one of the most liberal states in the country, delivering 62% of the vote for Barack Obama, in comparison to 36% of the vote for John McCain. And as liberal as Brown may be, he’d be far more conservative than Edward Kennedy (-.92), or Martha Coakley (no score as she has never been a legislator, nor has she filled out the Votesmart survey – but ACORN has given her its top rating). And the third party candidate here, Libertarian Joseph L. Kennedy (no relation to the famous ones), is not a viable candidate nor is he palatable to mainstream conservatives relative to Brown.

In other words, what began as a puzzle turns out not to be much of oneat all. It makes perfect sense that Scott Brown, a liberal Massachusetts Republican, has attracted Republican and conservative support. He’s perfectly suited for his liberal state electorate. Dede Scozzafava, in fact considerably more conservative than Scott Brown was not nearly so well matched to her intended constituency, the relatively conservative 23rd District that had returned moderate conservative John McHugh since the 1992 election.

What this shows, however, is that the conservative base in the United States, far from dragging their party moblike into an unelectable extreme, has made the decentralized decision to support the realistically best candidate they can relative to the context in which he’s being elected. The 23rd special district election can also be seen in this light; throwing Scozzafava overboard made far more sense in the context of that electorate.

[Varmint Al]

2010  In 2010 National Rifle Association gave Senator Brown a grade of A, in its scorecard for candidates seeking office in 2010.

2008  In 2008 Gun Owners' Action League gave Senator Brown a grade of A+.

2008  Based on lifetime voting records on gun issues and the results of a questionnaire sent to all Congressional candidates in 2008, the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund assigned Senator Brown a grade of A (with grades ranging from a high of A+ to a low of F).

2006  In 2006 National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gave Senator Brown a rating of A.

2004  In 2004 National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gave Senator Brown a rating of A.

2002  In 2002 National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gave Senator Brown a rating of A.

2000  In 2000 National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund gave Senator Brown a rating of A.

That is conservative enough for me.

Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

[montag813]

(Why do conservatives support him?)

Who do Newbies like you post this crap? To dampen enthusiasm and win votes for Joe Kennedy? Get lost.

[llevrok]

Why?

Timing
Timing
Timing

[Westbrook]

Because he’s a shift away from Kennedy in the RIGHT direction, Dinkweed.

[SonOfDarkSkies]

Scott Brown is a more liberal Republican than Dede Scozzafava (Why do conservatives support him?)

Let's see...who would I prefer to encounter on a dark night, County Dracula or a tick?

The title of this post is just about that stupid!

[driftdiver]

Dems are now threatening they can pass it with 51 votes using reconciliation.

[mia]

Well, he has two things that make him a very good Repub. candidate - anti-abortion and anti-Obamacare. That’s +2 for Brown and -2 for Coakley.

[mnehring]

Your chart is bogus, checking the source, that is the political range of the State Legislatures as a whole, NOT the two individual candidates you mention.

[jwalsh07]

Because he opposes Obamacare, cap & trade and treating terrorist scum like American pickpockets.

[MSF BU]

Brown is opposed to Card Check, to the Socialization of Medicine, he has served in the military, and he opposes Cap & Trade. He is far better than either Butch and Scuzzy.

[Cacique]

Because purist conservatives would rather see a communist genocide and the death of millions rather than vote for anyone else than Attila the Hun. That’s right, unless we get a conservative saint we should stay home and complain that Obama is in the white house.

[Mobties]

Boris Shor PhD’s article is a little pompous but if you click through to the comments on the original you find some interesting and perceptive comments:

“Possum Dearie Says:

January 15, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Is Scott Brown a proud winner of the Margaret Sanger Award?

Is Scott Brown heavily in the pocket of Planned Parenthood, ACORN or the NEA?

Is Scott Brown married to a leading union organizer and in favor of card-check?

Is Scott Brown going to change his opposition to ObamaCare?”

NB Boris Shor, PhD is from the University of Chicago. Isn’t that where Barack Hussein Obama taught constitutional law or community organizing?

[9YearLurker]

He’s certainly a mild, Northeast Republican, but pretty strong on taxes and defense, which is the best you’re going to get from such—and certainly the best you’re going to get from a MA Senator.

And from commonly known positions, he’s more conservative than Ms. Scotch’n’Fava. So I’d think the reasonable deduction would be to question your statistical methodology.

[patriot08]

.

HELP SCOTT DEFEAT THE OBAMA SOCK PUPPET!!

(stole this from another FReeper, but bears repeating)

•People in ANY state can volunteer for the phone bank! http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/phone-calls-for-freedom-call-1?commentId=2600775%3AComment%3A1891491&xg_source=activity

•Anyone… Anywhere… Contribute! https://www.icontribute.us/scottbrown

•Live in or near MA? Volunteers still needed at many regional offices. If you can help, please email Laura@brownforussenate.com and she will tell you how.

•If you live in Massachusetts, become an election judge. In Boston they pay $135-$185 and they NEED Republican monitors.

Needed; military and retired law enforcement VFW and police organizations etc to monitor polls- prevent the voter fraud they’re plotting right now. Video tape everything; document everything; prosecute the perpetrators. http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/default.aspx?id=3599

[E. Pluribus Unum]

He promised to be the 41st vote against Obamacare.

Works for me.

[Gene Eric]

Brown provides the greatest gain, Dede did not. Hoffman provided the greatest gain in NY23.

This is not complicated.

[mkjessup]

Well I sure hope that ‘Boris Schor PhD’ got paid in cash from the Coakley campaign before he released this nonsense.

[mnehring]

Not only is he misrepresenting the chart, did you look at the other articles, he has some archive articles defending Scuzzy as a Conservative, saying Zero wasn’t really a Liberal.

Where did you find this tripe?

[fish hawk]

I said something like that a few days ago and all hell broke loose. Still I am for him because it may kill the ObamaCare bill.