Posted on 09/17/2011 9:53:40 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
If Republican Mark Neumann and Democrat Tammy Baldwin win their party nominations for US Senate next year, the choice for Wisconsin voters would be as stark as it gets.
Baldwin has the most liberal congressional voting record of any Wisconsin lawmaker in the last 40 years, according to one respected academic rating system.
And guess who owns the most conservative record?
Neumann, who served two terms in the U.S. House in the 1990s.
A Baldwin-Neumann matchup is just one possible Senate scenario in 2012. Other candidates, including former GOP governor Tommy Thompson, are expected to jump in the race.
But Neumann and Baldwin are the only two who have so far declared, and their gaping differences underscore how wide the chasm has grown between the parties.
A victory by either one would fit a long-term national trend in Congress: the replacement of lawmakers closer to the political center by lawmakers farther out toward the political edges. The Senator whose job Baldwin and Neumann are seeking, Democrat Herb Kohl, ranks in the broad middle of the Senate ideologically.
The vote ratings used in this analysis come from two political scientists, Keith Poole of the University of Georgia and Howard Rosenthal of New York University, whose academic work is widely used by scholars to chart congressional voting.
The two designed computer programs that detect the broad patterns in the way lawmakers vote and, based on those patterns, place every member of Congress on a left-right scale. The Poole-Rosenthal system has the virtue of being politically neutral. It doesn’t cherry-pick votes or rely on subjective judgments about who is “liberal” or “moderate” or “conservative.” It’s essentially a very sophisticated statistical exercise. Their data even allows comparisons of Senators with House members, and lawmakers serving today with lawmakers who served 30 years ago.
Poole and Rosenthal have used their vote ratings to quantify the growing partisan divide on Capitol Hill, with the disappearance of southern conservatives from the Democratic Party, northern liberals from the Republican Party, and moderates from both. Put another way, the regional differences within each party have been steadily vanishing, along with the ideological diversity within each party.
“This is unprecedented in America history,” says Poole. “That election up there in Wisconsin is going to look a lot like an election in Georgia.”
His data show that party polarization -- the gap between how the typical Republican and the typical Democrat vote in Congress – is the highest in more than a century.
Where do Baldwin and Neumann fit in to the picture?
Baldwin’s career voting record made her the 19th most liberal member of the House last year, using the Poole-Rosenthal ratings. She was less liberal than John Conyers of Michigan and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois but more liberal than Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Nancy Pelosi of California.
Neumann’s two-term voting record made him the 12th most conservative member of the last Congress he served in (1997-98), less conservative than Ron Paul of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma but more conservative than Tom DeLay and Dick Armey of Texas.
Bottom line: if you plotted the entire 435-member House of Representatives on a left-right spectrum during their time in office, Baldwin would be very close to the left end of that scale and Neumann would be very close to the right end.
In fact, Baldwin and Neumann represent the biggest ideological gap between any two Wisconsin politicians to serve in Washington since at least the 1960s.
Outgoing Senator Herb Kohl is a lot closer to the political middle than either Baldwin or Neumann. Nationally, his career voting record made him the 44th most liberal Senator in 2009-10.
In the 2012 campaign, their congressional records may be a double-edged sword for Baldwin and Neumann. Those records could be assets in getting their party nominations, since primaries are often battles for the “base.” They could be assets in mobilizing partisan voters in November. But they’re a potential minus when it comes to winning swing voters in a general election.
Republicans have attacked Baldwin as “the most liberal” member of Congress. She’s not the most liberal nationally in these rankings, but she is among the top 5 percent in that category. At the same time, Neumann was just as far from the center line in Congress when he served in Washington as Baldwin is now (actually a bit farther).
Electability is already a big topic in this race for insiders on both sides. Some Democrats wonder about Baldwin’s ability to win statewide. On the GOP side, Thompson is arguing that he’s more electable than Neumann and other Republican hopefuls, citing his past success winning votes from independents and conservative Democrats.
Whether it’s good or bad to have the kind of stark ideological contrast that a Baldwin-Neumann race would provide is a matter of debate. Some would embrace it for its clarity. Others find the trend toward polarization troubling.
But as Poole and Rosenthal have shown, it’s very much the direction of things in American politics -- two parties moving further apart.
I will cross over and specifically vote for Baldwin in the primary. If she is their Party’s standard bearer we will have no trouble picking up that seat. Not only is Baldwin an extreme Madison liberal, she has benn in Congress for about a dozen years and has done absolutely nothing. Bring it.
I think time has passed him by...I don't think he runs..
That’s an interesting graph.
BUMP
“But as Poole and Rosenthal have shown, it’s very much the direction of things in American politics — two parties moving further apart.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
I think Tommy wanted to feel that sensation of love and adoration. I think he is seeing that that love and adoration has sort of evaporated and that he would have a bruising primary. To add to that, Neuman is a brass-knuckles fighter and he will certainly rough-up Thompson. I think Tommy ultimately decides to stay home and enjoy life.
Ken- Tommy Thompson is running. He was on Mark Belling’s show last week and basically in full campaign mode, talking about why he was the best candidate and also a true conservative based on his tax cutting history and leadership of school choice and welfare reform. The formal announcement hasn’t come yet, but he is in the race.
It doesn’t mention it in the story, but Neumann ran against Russ Feingold in the late ‘90s. I remember watching them debate on TV. Neumann was good, but a little stiff. He just didn’t look comfortable.
Isn’t Baldwin a Lesbian?
She’s a total lizard.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
The leftists on the comment thread at the source say "Look! The parties used to be closer together! Now one of them has changed, the Republicans!"
As if that's a bad thing.
Yes, for some time there were many RINOs who went along with the collectivism that is bankrupting us. Now that is ending.
Good!
I don’t think Tommy will run, either. We’re all tired of him, LOL!
He hasn’t shown up on local, conservative WIBA AM1310, yet. In the past, he was all over that station from the minute he even thought about running for anything.
“...it’s very much the direction of things in American politics — two parties moving further apart.”
The people have already “moved apart” - they have divided, as they always have been, along the lines of federalist vs. anti-federalist, unlimited power of the State vs. limited power, centralized Government vs local control, Rights of the Collective vs. Rights of the individual.
This shift in power has been accomplished by misusing the Judiciary, entrenched legislative and corporate interests, and bureaucratic administrative authority, without using the Constitutional Amendment process, use of which would have aired-out and resolved the true nature of the power-grab.
So, the moving apart of the political parties only reflects the unresolved differences of two factions of the people who just fundamentally disagree about the role and usefulness of their federal government.
Aren't lizards multi-metro-trans-bi-sexual?
Don't insult LIZARDS!! :-)
If you want a leftist/lesbian/Madison nut, Tammy’s your woman er I mean womyn. She epitomizes everything bad about Madison....and Madison is actually a very nice place to visit. If you don’t mind being constantly hit over the head with lib/leftist propaganda.
“If you don’t mind being constantly hit over the head with lib/leftist propaganda.”
Living here, you can tune it out for only so long. The tide is turning, even in ‘The People’s Republik of Madistan.’ :)
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