There's this narrative that's building on the Left, the idea that the Democratic Party is either:
A) Only marginally better than the Republicans, or
B) Essentially indistinguishable from the Republicans
Now, any narrative is essentially a fiction, a model of reality intended to highlight certain underlying truths. The problem, in this case, is that the narrative is exactly wrong.
There's no question that the Dems have been disappointing on the Healthcare debate. But it seems that the intensity of this conflict has produced a sort of tunnel vision, where the bona fides of the Party itself have come into question.
We've had many conversations here about faith-based versus reality-based thinking. One of the hallmarks of reality-based thinking is that it is based on facts and evidence, as opposed to emotion and feeling. Due to the inherent subjectivity of the question "do Democrats suck?", it's hard to frame the debate in an evidence-based fashion - hard, but not impossible.
There are dozens of political watchdog groups that review key votes in the House and Senate. If a vote is important to that group's agenda, the legislators who vote for it are recorded. The aggregate of these votes is the "score" of those legislators, from that group's perspective. These scores give us a reasonably objective way to gauge the tendencies of our legislators.
I've tabulated scores from 13 advocacy groups, out of dozens:
2008 Planned Parenthood
Rating: Democrats average 85.5, Republicans average 5.5
2007-2008 Humane Society
Rating: Democrats average 71.3, Republicans average 30.7
2008 National Tax Limitation Committee - wingnut org, their mission:
"National Tax Limitation Committee's mission is to create a political and economic environment in which you--the individual, productive citizen--can enjoy the opportunity to excel, maximize your choices and enjoy the fruits of your labors free from an intrusive, coercive government"
Rating: Democrats average 3.5, Republicans average 82.5
2008 U.S. Chamber of Commerce - This situation is murky, because it's not completely clear that the USCC is uniformly opposed to our interests. For example, they supported the stimulus and they support the jobs bill. Nonetheless I include it as an indicator of how "business-friendly" the parties are.
Rating: Democrats average 59.4, Republicans average 85.6
What's interesting is that there is a clear pattern of Democrats voting very differently than Republicans. What's more interesting is how vast the difference usually is. We're not talking about Dems voting differently 20% or 40% of the time, we're talking about voting liberally 3 to 5 times as much as Republicans.
2007 League of Women Voters
Rating: Democrats average 89.1, Republicans average 21.7
2007-2008 ACLU
Rating: Democrats average 87.6, Republicans average 21.1
2008 The Club for Growth
Rating: Democrats average 5.8, Republicans average 74.1
2007 National Association of Elementary School Principals - NEA would have been better, but they recently moved to a "letter grade" score, which is difficult to average.
Rating: Democrats average 99.7, Republicans average 37.0
Beyond just the fact the Democrats vote our issues far more than Republicans do, it's obvious that the consistency of their voting doesn't imply a "lesser evil". In most cases, the average score is within spitting distance of 100% - perfection - and remember, we're taking average score. This is not a "lesser evil" - it's a greater good.
2007 National Employment Lawyers Association - An employee advocacy org, their mission:
"The National Employment Lawyers Association is a specialty bar association for those attorneys in the legal profession who exclusively or primarily represent workers in employment disputes. NELA provides help and support to lawyers protecting the rights of workers through networking, educational programs, publications and technical assistance."
Rating: Democrats average 71.8, Republicans average 26.3
2008 Environment America
Rating: Democrats average 92.3, Republicans average 16.6
2007-2008 American Family Association - I'll let their mission speak for itself:
"The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth."
Rating: Democrats average 6.3, Republicans average 87.0
2007-2008 National Breast Cancer Coalition
Rating: Democrats average 71.8, Republicans average 26.8
2007-2008 AFL-CIO
Rating: Democrats average 97.7, Republicans average 20.1
Given the heated debates that have been raging lately, I wanted to keep this diary as 'cool' as possible (hyperbolic title aside). To that end, it's much drier than I would otherwise like. But I have two observations that I think are important:
First of all, this is not an apologia for things the Dems haven't done. It is a celebration of their actual record. Even a Senator that votes with you 90% of the time may piss you off on that 10% (see Feingold lately). Criticism and praise are not exclusive.
Secondly, to the extent that vigorous advocacy damages the overall perception of the Party, that advocacy is destructive. It's easier to gin up outrage than it is to tamp it down. It's in all our best interests for outrage to be specifically focused where it is warranted, and not bleed over into contra-factual narratives. The Democratic Party isn't just the best of poor choices, it's a good choice, even if imperfect.
Let's Primary bad Dems. Let's support Progressive Dems. But by all means, for the good of the country, let's elect more Dems.