The DW-Nominate scale is used to place politicians on a left-right axis. Now that the parties have purified themselves, per Krugman, if you know how a candidate feels about taxes and the safety net, you can predict with high accuracy how they feel about most other issues.
And here is a ranking of the post WWII Presidents. On this scale, liberal is toward the bottom, conservative is toward the top.
So, a few quick hits for everyone.
- Obama's score of -0.3 is the least liberal score shown, and one has to assume less liberal than FDR as well
- Jimmy Carter was the most liberal President any of us ever saw (except Charlotte Lucas and a few others)
- Roughly speaking, Obama is as liberal as Eisenhower was conservative
- No Democrat has been as liberal as Reagan or the Bushes were conservative
- Anyone who says Obama is "a Republican", "like a Republican", "as bad as a Republican", et cetera, is full of digestive by-products. Obama is closer to Carter than he is to the 0.0 line of pure moderation (the Broder line?). If Obama is "like a Republican", he's like an old-school left-wing Republican back from the days of Nixon - but even that is overstating it.
- The trend since Reagan has been for both parties to move upward toward the pure conservative apotheosis. Per Mahrer, "The Democrats have moved to the center and the Republicans have moved to the insane asylum".
There are cogent objections to be made here, specifically in some areas related to privacy and security. That is, it is not really possible to reduce a politician to a single number.
Having said that, I think that the current crop of GOP contenders are all more conservative than Dubya - or, at least, pretend to be. Willard M. Romney, so far as I can tell, believes in the success of Willard M. Romney, and will ruthlessly destroy any obstacle necessary to achieve that goal. However, I think that effectively he'd govern from a position of fear, and whoever scared him the most would control him.
I therefore propose the following as a way to gauge how important it is to elect the Democrat: how much difference is there between the two?
So:
Ford versus Carter: Carter better by about 1.1 DWN points (0.55 - -0.55).
Carter versus Reagan: Carter better by about 1.3 DWN points (0.75 - -0.55).
Clinton versus Bush I: Clinton better by about 1.05 DWN points (0.6 - -0.45).
Gore is not shown. Scoring him as similar to Clinton:
Gore versus Bush II: Gore better by about 1.2 DWN points (0.75 - -0.45).
And, for the big finish:
Obama versus likely Republicans: Obama better by ~1.1 DWN points (0.8 - -0.3).
Therefore, this election is not "the most important in our lifetimes". That was Reagan - Carter, and the bad guys won.
However, when Reagan won the Democrats retained at least nominal control of the House (I do recall Boll Weevil Democrats). This time around the Republicans have a good shot at having both the House and the Senate.
This makes this election more like Bush - Gore; and I trust you recall how the reign of the Evil Shrub went for America. That was bad; this might well be worse.
10:52 AM PT: Krugman credits Digby: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/...
11:10 AM PT: An explanation of the DW-NOMINATE scores may be found here - if you are numerate. If not, your eyes will glaze over quickly.
http://www.voteview.com/...