I've been working on this for a while, and will continue to work on it. I have put together an Excel spreadsheet (download here) that records virtually every single roll call vote in the Senate this year. I have excluded certain "token" votes - like the Resolution expressing condolences on the death of John Paul II and other such non-binding resolutions that have no political effect and are virtually always unanimous.
I have taken each vote and assigned a "conservative" vote position. And have then sought to rate each Senator's conservativeness. This goes farther than most ratings as they take into account only certain "major" votes. But there are many amendments and procedural votes that are quite important.
Finally, I have also sought to give Republican Senators "loyalty scores" indicating how often they vote with the Republican caucus. In order to do that, I considered a "loyalty vote" any vote in which at least 47 Republicans vote on the same side. I chose the number because it is about 85%, and it also sounded about right. As we know there are 4 or 5 "moderates" in the caucus - so a number like 50 would have left few votes to count. Where the caucus loses 9 members however, it seemed fair to say there was more than just RINOism going on.
I will be regularly updating the votes. I encourage those reviewing the info to give me feedback - are the parameters right, do you think I mischaracterized a particular vote, is there a vote on which I missed the "conservative" position?
Please see below for some of the findings and some conclusions on those numbers.
ANALYSIS
Not surprisingly, the lowest Republicans on the conservative scale, are the traditional RINOs - Chafee (54), Snowe (60), Collins (64), Specter (69), DeWine (68).
What was a little surprising to me is that Norm Coleman, who gets praised quite a bit by conservatives, and rarely gets tagged as a RINO (in a derisive way), only scored a 73, lower than Sen. Voinovich, who does get a few condemning scoffs (74). Another surprise, Joe Lieberman, the great "moderate Democrat" only came in with a 26.
I'd also note that Ben Nelson scored a 62, higher than Chafee and Snowe, but lower than all other Republicans. The next Democrats on the list are Max Baucus (MT) and Tom Carper (DE) at 39. A noticeable drop.
Another note - the high score was Tom Coburn (OK) at 92. Jon Kyl (AZ) scored a 91. Poster child Rick Santorum (PA) is in the middle of the pack at 85. The low was from Dan Akaka (HI) at 16, followed closely by Ted Kennedy (MA), Frank Lautenberg (NJ) and Dick Durbin (IL) at 17. The average Democrat scored about a 25, while the average Republican was at about 85.
Notable Democrats up in 2006: Bob Byrd (WV) - 33; Kent Conrad (ND) - 38; Nelson (FL) - 32 (notice the attempt to moderate a bit on those three); Clinton (NY) - 23; Stabenow (MI) - 22; Cantwell (WA) - 21.
On the party loyalty scale - few surprises. Most Republicans came in somewhere in the mid to high 90s. Kit Bond (MO), Mitch McConnell (KY), and Conrad Burns (MT) got perfect 100s, with several members getting 99. The low - Chafee 64. But the other "RINOs" had, what I found to be higher scores in this area than I would have expected. Snowe, 76; Collins, 79; DeWine, 85; McCain, 88; Voinovich, 89. Coleman redeems himself with a 91.
But my point in all this was to "prove" my longstanding argument - that any Republican is better than any Democrat. I say this especially with regard to people like Chafee, Snowe and Collins. While Laffey has jumped in up in Rhode Island, Brown U. has a poll showing that Laffey would be well behind both declared Democrats, while Chafee has extended his lead against both. I remain of the opinion that while Laffey might be able to win a primary, he would not win the general election. So we can have Lincoln Chafee or Sheldon Whitehouse (looks like hes ahead on the donk side). Do we want a 54% conservative, someone who will be on our side about 65% of the time, and who sits in the caucus (thereby allowing the opportunity to convince him to stay on board and contributing to increased margins on committees and in staff/funding allocations). Or would we rather a Democrat who is likely to come in at about 20% conservative, will almost never be with us, and who will serve to only decrease our margins on committees?
I go with the former. If the choice were between a conservative Republican and a more "moderate" Republican, I would of course choose the conservative. But in the case of a number of the "RINOs" the choice is not between conservative and moderate, it's between a moderate Republican and a liberal Democrat.
As someone who considers themself a "Golwater" conservative, I would think you would be more about principle than party. As a Pennsylvanian who watched in horror the night when Specter defeated a true conservative, Toomey, I encourage you to not sit idly by and allow the pundits to tell you that it cannot be done. I will tell you that it is an uphill battel, but one worth fighting, nonetheless. Chafee is no Republican(check out the party platform). If you are willing to put party ahead of principle, then fine, but don't try to disguise it as you being a better person because you are working for the common good.
Posted by: patty | September 18, 2005 at 10:17 AM