Grading on a curve is silly though. This isn’t a contest. If every Congressman voted conservative 100% of the time, but one guy only voted conservative 99% of the time, then he would be deemed “less conservative” than 99% of Congressman. Which in this case sounds a lot worse than it is. If the Congress overall is very conservative, than ranking lower among your peers isn’t that bad.
We also need to know how they define conservatism. Voting for tougher penalties for drug-related crimes is conservative to me. The Ron Paulites would think that was being a big government liberal and that it was “conservative” to repeal all drug laws.
Not so silly when you look, for example, at the four most conservative Senators: Barasso, Kyle, Colburn and Demint.
The first two are in Senate leadership positions, the second two, more junior, are frequent public spokesmen, and my point is, those are serious leaders, pulling Congress in a more conservative direction.
By contrast, our presidential candidates mostly come from the center of the pack -- they are neither more nor less conservative than their Republican peers.
They are not leading the way, they are not pushing to the right.
Like "maverick" John McCain they like to reach across the isle.
Like Newt Gingrich, they like to sit down with the Nancy Pelosis to find "common ground" -- not on our ground, but on hers.
JediJones: "We also need to know how they define conservatism."
True, but when you have nearly all Democrats voting one way, and nearly all Republicans the other, then you might assume we're looking at a clear distinction.
So I would give the authors the benefit of the doubt based on the intuitive ideas that 1) we instantly recognize those famous names ranked as most liberal or most conservative, and 2) as well we recognize the "moderates" in the middle, like McCain or Dole.
As for Ron Paul, I don't know how often he votes with liberal Democrats against the military, or some other weirdness like legalizing drugs, but those kinds of votes must be infrequent and virtually all of his other votes are strictly conservative.
Anyway, here's the bottom line: every Republican is more conservative than any Democrat, and so would steer the nation in a better direction.
But wouldn't it be nice if some day more conservative leaders could win more national recognition?