We are about to elect the most liberal government the United States has ever had. Is this a good thing? Right now the only elected officials with a popularity rating lower than George Bush, would be the Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid lead United States Congress. So why are the American voters poised to reward them? Lets look at the score cards.
The Real Clear Politics poll on Congressional Job Approval has only 16% of American's approving of the job the Democrat controlled congress is doing.
The Real Clear Politics poll on President Bush's Approval has 26.5% of American's approving of the job President Bush is doing. That is a 10.5% advantage for the President over the Congress.
The National Journal ranks legislators to determine "their Liberalness" by using the following matrix:
A panel of National Journal editors and reporters initially compiled a list of 216 key congressional roll-call votes for 2007 -- 107 votes for the Senate and 109 for the House -- and classified them as relating to economic, social, or foreign policy.
Polidata, a nonpartisan political data-analysis firm, downloaded lists from the House and Senate websites of how all the members voted on the key votes. Those lists were then sent to the Brookings Institution, where the Information Technology Services division performed the data processing and statistical analysis. The ratings system was first devised in 1981 under the direction ofWilliam Schneider, a political analyst and commentator, and a contributing editor to National Journal.
The votes in each issue area were subjected to a principal-components analysis, a statistical procedure designed to determine the degree to which each vote resembled other votes in the same category (the same members tending to vote together). Ten of the 216 votes (eight in the Senate and two in the House) were dropped from the analysis because they were statistically unrelated to others in the same issue area. These typically were votes that reflected regional and special-interest concerns, rather than general ideology.
For 2007, the last year full statistical analysis is available, the most liberal Senator in the US Senate was Barack Obama, (D-Ill). Joseph Biden, (D-Del.) was number three and Harry Reid, (D-NV) was ranked as the ninth most liberal Senator. If we look at their actual scores Obama scored an average of 95.5, Biden a 94.2 and Harry Reid scored an 89.2. Now to give that some perspective, Christopher Dodd, (D-Conn.) scored a 77 and Diane Finestein (D-Ca.) scored a 71. The most liberal Senator on the Republican side of the isle, Olympia Snowe, (R-Maine) scored a 47.8.
Since Nancy Pelosi does not have a 2007 rating, due to the fact that she missed over 50% of the votes (as is typical for a Speaker of the House of any party) it is hard to "officially" place her as the most liberal in the House, but from past years, when she was not the Speaker, she consistently ranked in the top 10 most liberal in the US House of Representatives.
Let's look at how Planned Parenthood ranks the candidates.
Senator Barack Obama received a perfect 100% from Planned Parenthood's PAC.
Senator Joseph Biden received a perfect 100% from Planned Parenthood's PAC.
Senator Harry Reid received a "mixed" score of 57% from Planned Parenthood's PAC (Supports Partial Birth Abortion Ban)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi received a perfect 100% from Planned Parenthood's PAC.
Senator John McCain received a perfect 0% from Planned Parenthood's PAC.
I don't think anyone can make a reasonable argument that Obama/Biden, Reid and Pelosi are not far left of center. We are about to put the most far-left government into power that the United States has ever seen. The rights of the new-minority, hardworking, responsible, saving, productive people, will be trampled under this type of intrusive government. The incentives for responsible behavior are at risk of being eliminated by the Obama-Reid-Pelosi "party of three". If there is no reward for sacrifice, who will sacrifice? If your 401K or nest egg can be eliminated/confiscated to fund a government retirement plan, why save? If you will get the same health care and retirement as the person who does not have the discipline to sacrifice and save, why do either?
A liberal super-majority is not the answer. The backlash will be enormous and the detrimental effects long lasting.
As an interesting aside, here is a list of people and groups who endorse Barack Obama:
Joan Baez, singer, peace and human rights activist
Tom Bernstein, lawyer, businessman and human rights activist
William Charles Ayers American elementary education theorist and former 1960s anti-war activist. He is known for the radical nature of his activism in the 1960s and 1970s as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction.
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