I recently came across a quite sane diary about Evan Bayh and his centrist positions. What was quite a cause for alarm by me was the attacks in the comments and the calls to primary Evan Bayh in the next cycle. Even the calls to say that he is a bad person because according to Progressive Punch ("PP") the only votes with the Democrats 78% of the time and when the chips are down as PP calls it he is even worse at 68%.
Now that being said the best Republican ratings according to PP are:
Arlen Specter at 37%/26%
Olympia Snows at 36%/41%
Susan Collins at 34%/32%
And for comparison the Republican Senator from IN is
Richard Lugar at 13%/11%
So I wanted to do a little analysis for the reality based folks at DKos..
First of all why use PP as a benchmark? Good question...well here is there methodology - http://www.progressivepunch.org/...
A couple of points...
- They do not count votes that are not important to progressives
- The create the progressive position as the one held by the majority of progressives
- Include a lifetime score as well as a "chips are down" score for crucial votes that matter more than regular business votes.
So not that it is the difinitive definition but it seems like a reasonable place to start.
What else should we consider...well PVI index might be helpful to determine the predisposition of the state as compared to the country. The definition of PVI is the difference between the actual election results and the results in that state. So if I were going to use 2004 as an example, GWB won 51% of the vote nationally and 60% in IN so the 2006 PVI in IN would be R+9. However, I will use the more Democratic friendly analysis of 2008 with the same methodology.
So for our purposes I will use the DKos scoreboard and round up Obama's win to 53% (from 52.7) given that most analysis says that he won that much but the AP totals have not been updated for all the votes. The state comparisons I will take the rounded number from the scoreboard.
Here is a link so you can follow along with PP...sort by lifetime score
http://www.progressivepunch.org/...
So lets start from the worst "blue dogs" in the Senate and work our way up to anyone who has a score on either measure less than 90%. The PP scores will be Lifetime/Chips are Down
- Ben Nelson (D-NE) PVI R+11 PP 52%/58% (2004 PVI R+13)
- Max BAucus (D-MT) PVI R+6 PP 74%/77% (2004 PVI R+8)
- Mary Landrieu (D-LA) PVI R+13 PP 74%/65% (2004 PVI R+6) change R+7
- Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) PVI R+14 PP 76%/73% (2004 PVI R+3) change R+11
- Thomas Carper (D-DE) PVI D+9 PP 77%/76% (2004 PVI D+5) change D+4
- Mark Pryor (D-AR) PVI R+14 PP 77%/69% (2004 PVI R+3) change R+11
- Evan Bayh (D-IN) PVI R+3 PP 79%/68% (2004 PVI R+9) change D+6
- Robert Byrd (D-WV) PVI R+10 PP 79%/73% (2004 PVI R+5) change R+5
- Tim Johnson (D-SD) PVI R+8 PP 80%/43% (2004 PVI R+9)
10.Claire McCaskill (D-MO) PVI R+4 PP 80%/77% (2004 PVI R+2)
11.Kent Conrad (D-ND) PVI R+8 PP 80%/79% (2004 PVI R+12)change D+4
12.Harry Reid (D-NV) PVI D+2 PP 83%/86% (2004 PVI R+0)
13.Bill Nelson (D-FL) PVI R+2 PP 83%/83% (2004 PVI R+1)
14.Herb Kohl (D-WI) PVI D+3 PP 83%/90% (2004 PVI D+1)
15.Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) PVI D+4 PP 83%/90% (2004 PVI D+1)
16.Bryon Dorgan (D-ND) PVI R+8 PP 84%/80% (2004 PVI R+12)change D+4
17.Daniel Inouye (D-HI) PVI D+19 PP 84%/78% (2004 PVI D+6) change D+13
18.Ken Salazar (D-CO) PVI D+1 PP 84%/78% (2004 PVI R+1)
19.Jon Tester (D-MT) PVI R+6 PP 84%/79% (2004 PVI R+8)
20.Diane Feinstein (D-CA) PVI D+8 PP 85%/86% (2004 PVI D+6)
21.Jim Webb (D-VA) PVI D+0 PP 87%/80% (2004 PVI R+3)
22.John Rockefellar (D-WV) PVI R+10 PP 87%/78% (2004 PVI R+5) Change R+5
23.Christopher Dodd (D-CT) PVI D+8 PP 88%/81% (2004 PVI D+7)
24.John Kerry (D-MA) PVI D+9 PP 88%/93% (2004 PVI D+14)change R+5
25.Ron Wyden (D-OR) PVI D+4 PP 89%/92% (2004 PVI D+3)
26.Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) PVI D+9 PP 90%/86% (2004 PVI D+8)
27.Hillary Clinton (D-NY) PVI D+9 PP 91%/82% (2004 PVI D+11)
28.Robert Casey (D-PA) PVI D+2 PP 92%/89% (2004 PVI D+2)
29.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) PVI D+1 PP 92%/88% (2004 PVI D+3)
30.Edward Kennedy (D-MA) PVI D+9 PP 96%/84% (2004 PVI D+14)change R+5
So there you have it all of the non pure-liberals who did not tow the progressive line at least 90% of the time lifetime or when the chips were down. Comparing that to the state's PVI provides some interesting data to make some choices for supporting or not supporting these Senators in their next election cycle.
So I would rank them in order of the difference between their lowest PVI score - 90 (the progressive deficit) compared to the PVI Index. For this purpose instead of reporting R+ we will convert to D-.The higher the deficit the in the PP score the more of a deficit in the PVI I would expect. So when you do this and compare the PP voting record with the PVI the interesting results are as follows:
The 10 Worst:
- Tim Johnson -39 (Some funny numbers there...could be his absence)
- Dan Inouye
31 (only 18 with 2004 PVI - May retire)
- Ben Nelson -27 (Don't think we can do any better sadly)
- Thomas Carper -23 (Why is he not voting more progressive?)
- Evan Bayh
19 (only 13 with 2004 PVI)
- Chris Dodd -17 (Our Progressive Hero is not so progressive compared to his PVI
- Hillary Clinton -17 (Maybe she should be primaried)
- Edward Kennedy -15 (due to missing some votes for illness)
- Ken Salazar -13 (Need to keep an eye on him)
- Diane Feinstein -13 (Ligitimate Primary candidate)
- Barbara Mikulski -13 (I think she will be retiring anyway)
8.5.Mary Landrieu -12 (Serious trending Republican, need to watch)
- Jeff Bingaman -11 (Seems OK but need to watch him)
- John Kerry
11 (what is up with MA make an example of him)
10.Max Baucus -10 (Still a R+ state and he is reliable for not caving)
10.Herb Kohl -10 (Primary time for Herby we should be better than this)
10.Jim Webb -10 (Need to watch him, needs to keep up with state trending D+)
The rest including: Claire McCaskill(-9), Harry Reid (-9), Mark Pryor (-7), Robert Byrd (-7), Bill Nelson (-5), Jon Tester (-5), Ron Wyden (-5), Blanche Lincoln, Kent Conrad, Robert Casey, Amy Kobluchar (all 3), and Bryan Dorgan, John Rockefellar (at 2) seem like low priority targets.
So my top choices for primarying Senators are:
- Thomas Carper (who does this guy think he his - we should be able to win his seat with Liberal Mickey Mouse)
- Dan Inouye (may make him think about retiring)
- Barbara Mikulski (maybe make her think about retiring)
- Diane Feinstein (we should be able to get another Boxer for her seat)
- Chris Dodd (maybe a liberal primary challenger will make him be on his toes for the tough votes)
- Herb Kohl (he needs a wakeup call)
- John Kerry (we should be able to keep this seat with a liberal Mickey Mouse)
The rest we should keep an eye on and see how they move in a Democratic administration with a Democratic Senate to see how they move and decide later.
Interesting results...certaintly some I did not expect. You can quibble with my methodology...fine...come up with your own.
Do you own analysis and figure out who to primary based on facts not emotion over one or 2 votes that really make you mad.
******Update I missed Mary Landrieu in my analysis...added****