Comments on: Political Scientists Say Obama Might Be More Liberal Than Hillary

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:19:41 +0000

Rethinking my comment, I think the bigger danger is actually breaking votes down into a single spectrum, especially with the up-and-coming Ron Paul-itic where libertarians are being bred among social liberals and Liberal Economists (lassiez-faire). My godshonest opinion is that single-spectrum breakdowns are preventing us from getting the real picture behind the political landscape of a slowly-emerging three-party state.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:09:40 +0000

What are your standards for "liberal" and "conservative"? With issues like strong usfg, the drug war, and support for israel being basically undiscussed among factions, I'm interested to see what the definition has grown into.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:55:45 +0000

more conservative than GOP stalwarts like Orrin Hatch ... and Lamar Alexander.

I hope McCain didn't injure himself outdoing those guys.

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:24:29 +0000

However you package it, both Obama and Clinton are from the far left wing of US politics (and those viewing from the left may see a huge difference, but they are both far to the left of the median US voter).

However it looks like from the right, McCain is well to the right (but a lot closer than Obama or Clinton) of the median US voter.

Obama is not well known for the average voter, but he will get labeled as liberal and the label will stick because it is true (see his voting record). There is nothing per se wrong with being liberal, but it is a political position that is at odds with the median US voter.

But the real fun is going to happen when we get a viable third party contestant (viable not in winning, but viable in the sense of taking enough votes in enough states to flip the EV results).

By: PoliBlog ™: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Political Scientists Get Into the Act

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:15:53 +0000

[...] at OTB, Chris Lawrence1 ran some numbers and found: On the Republican side, John McCain appears in the middle of the GOP [...]