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The gap between Democrats and Republicans is a chasm

[ED:This much work deserves more attention. AR]

So, what does a geek do when her DSL goes down and she can't get on line?  Enter voting record data in a spreadsheet, that's what.  I attended an Alliance for Retired Americans meeting last Wednesday, and got a summary of their lifetime voting ratings on issues of importance to seniors (available at http://www.retiredamericans.org ). I noticed a lot of zeros for Republicans and 100s for Democrats right off, and I wondered how the polarization would work out if I put in all the data and got means and standard deviations for members of both parties.  The gap turned out to be a huge chasm, and there were not very many of either party truly in the middle.

House of Representatives.

Democrats mean = 94.6, standard deviation = 8.0, minimum value =58
Republicans mean = 5.5, standard deviation = 6.2, maximum value =33

Senators

Democrats mean = 93.3, standard deviation = 10.5, minimum value =52
Republicans mean = 8.0, standard deviation = 11.5, maximum value =69

I don't think it affected the results very much to include Bernie Sanders with the Democrats in the House, but including former Republican Jeffords skewed the results for the Senate quite a bit with his rating of 69 in the conservative Democrat range.  The second highest rating for a Republican in the Senate was 35.  Note that the most conservative DINO is still about 25 points higher than the most liberal RINO.

As a check of how many legislators could be considered "moderate," I did the same calculations for all Democrats with ratings less than 85, and all Republicans with ratings more than 15.  And the differences are still pretty drastic, with very few Democrats (19 in the House, 5 in the Senate) in this category, and only 16 House and 7 Senate Republicans.  (That last number includes Jeffords as a Republican--leave him out and the mean and standard deviation change noticeably.)

House "moderates"

Democrats mean = 75.8 standard deviation = 8.8, total number =19
Republicans mean = 22.2, standard deviation = 4.6, total number =16

Senate "moderates"

Democrats mean = 71.6 standard deviation = 13.0, total number =5
Republicans mean = 34.1, standard deviation = 16.5, total number =7
Republicans mean = 28.3, standard deviation = 6.5, total number =6 (leaving Jeffords out)

So bear in mind that when occasionally some Democrats make us mad by voting with Republicans on some issues that the  majority of Democrats do not do so, and that the most conservative Democrat is more likely to be better for the interests of average citizens than the most liberal Republican by 40 or 50 points.

< Signs of the apocolypse - wherein Switzer disagrees with himself | Well, don't that beat all ... >
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More and more people need to look at such numbers.  It is a farce when someone like Dave Reichert is called a "moderate".  In what circles?  To a wingnut I'm sure he looks like a moderate, but to a Democrat, and pretty much most centrists he is anything but, and his voting record bares that out.  If you look at Sanders his voting record is almost indistiguishable to Democrats.

Seniors need to understand this, young voters need to understand this - everyone needs to understand this.

On The Road To 2008: Countdown to the next opportunity to change the direction of America

by Daniel K on Tue Jun 06, 2006 at 11:44:37 AM PST

* 1 5.00 2 *


--and the damned DSL was STILL not on, though it appears to be OK now.  However, for a wonky nerd like me, spending time that way is more like a tropism than work.

by eridani on Tue Jun 06, 2006 at 12:22:57 PM PST

* 2 5.00 2 *


Well done.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

by Belltowner on Wed Jun 07, 2006 at 12:28:24 AM PST

* 4 none 0 *


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