Hawaii Senator Dan Akaka was ranked by Time Magazine at the top of an alphabatized list of the 5 worst U.S. Senators. Akaka is running for re-election with a primary battle against Rep. Ed Case, a conservative Democrat who is giving up his House seat to challenge Akaka. So far Case has campaigned on a a single issue - that Akaka is too old. Time just gave Case the second leg of his campaign.
The Time Rankings are based on discussions with "dozens of academics, political scientists and current and former Senators". For starters, I fail to see a distinction between political scientists and academics, so let's not count them as two groups. So Time interviewed politicians and academics -- but they don't reveal who. Without that, Time's sophisticated readers will have a hard time putting all this in context.
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