Obama Opens Up a 9-Point Lead

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
1. The time period we've just been discussing is from 2000 to 2004. I think McCain clearly strayed farther and farther from the Republican party in those years, culminating with his flirtation with the Democratic VP slot in 2004. You've given me no reason to believe otherwise.

No. I made my initial statement about 2000-2008. You asked me to clarify what I was talking about, and why I used the phrase "may have been" for 2004. I explained why I used such verbage. If you understand the explanations, you would realize that I have not been talking about 2004 specifically at all.

The statement you later quoted was 2000 to present as well.

2. I don't think it's clear that McCain has shifted toward the mainstream of the Republican Party in the last eight years. In fact, I think the opposite has happened and that the mainstream Republican view has shifted toward McCain. The Bush administration has clearly governed in different fashion during its second term and this change has brought it more in line with McCain's already established views.

That's why R's are supporting abolishing the Bush tax cuts instead of extending them indefinitely?

And why R's don't support the government's right to torture?

It's why McCain chose Palin, who might as well be Bush in a dress as far as policy goes.



Since 2000, most of the areas where McCain used to stand up to R's (even to his detriment) he has abandoned for more conservative stances and the R presidential nomination. As I said, I'm not too concerned about when it happened specifically, just that it's happened somewhere in that timeframe. R's have moved towards Bush's right wing, and McCain has followed.

(The site you linked to shows this in regards to civil rights issues very clearly, see animated senate graph near the end of the site.)

3. That being said, McCain still has significant differences with large swathes of his own party. McCain-Kennedy and the Gang of 14 are evidence of this.

Of course most will differ in some way or another from the party platform (which itself tends to be somewhat of a nebulous thing).

All the specific big ticket issues I can think of that McCain had (~2000-?) differed with his party with, he has adopted more conservative stances on.

An interesting site...

Sure it's interesting. (Though it'd be much more interesting if they explained what the Y axis on some of those graphs actually meant.) Watch the Senate animated graph from 2000-2008, bearing in mind where Bush lands on the similar graph (~1.75, ~-.25). Around 2000 he jumps quite a ways to the liberal side of the R party, having been previous right around where Bush is (by looking at other similar graphs). Then McCain moves a bit more towards Bush's position in each subsequent frame, essentially ending up right where he was before the jump to the left (and just about right on top of Bush).



Of course the real issue on that page is how our political divide is widening, and the chance for moderates diminishing. Neither Obama or McCain ('08) are helping that.

[Ramo]

As I was saying, Bush has endorsed a cap on carbon emissions from power plants. He just broke that campaign promise.

That impression had taken hold after President Bush, responding to pressures from the energy industry, broke a campaign pledge to put a cap on power plants' emissions of carbon dioxide, right after she had talked up his intention to control that greenhouse gas. Then, after she urged him "to appear engaged" on controlling global warming, the administration decided instead to write the obituary of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty on climate change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/17/politics/17WHIT.html?ex=1223265600&en=5e5363abd4e48479&ei=5070

And no way is a 60% target going to fly in the next Congress.

[Darius871]

What the hell is the Y-axis supposed to be?

[Aeson]

SLAVERY!

(I don't know for sure... my guess would be it's an authoritarian-libertarian scale?)

[Naked Gents Rut]

Is it really that hard to look at the previous graphs and note that the Y-axis is "Social/Lifestyle Issues"?

[Aeson]

No, it's not hard. It's also not hard to notice that there are some similarities... and extrapolate from such graphs and having been conscious for the last 8 years that in general Bush is going to be towards the Conservative/Authoritarian corner of the R's in most cases.

And that's where McCain has been headed.

[Ramo]

Yep, he (like the GOP in general) supported the Military Commissions Act, stripping away habeas corpus.

[Naked Gents Rut]

And that's where McCain has been headed.

I just put up a graph of McCain's position in the last Congress (his most conservative since 2000). He's still a clear outlier from Bush and the rest of the Republican Party. You're just being obtuse now in your lame denials of the obvious gulf between McCain and Bush.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
I just put up a graph of McCain's position in the last Congress (his most conservative since 2000). He's still a clear outlier from Bush and the rest of the Republican Party. You're just being obtuse now in your lame denials of the obvious gulf between McCain and Bush.

And the other graph that shows his actual movement from 2000-2008 shows otherwise.

On some issues McCain isn't Bush. That's clear enough. But he's more aligned with Bush and the R party overall now than he was in 2000, as well as having moved to the right since them in an absolute sense (as has the entire R party for the most part). That is also clear.

You can't point to a nebulously defined "social/lifestyle" axis of a graph and say that he's a Maverick because of whatever the hell that is referring to. If someone walked up to you on the street and said "I'm a -.5 on the social lifestyle scale" the proper response would be to kick them in the nuts for being a douche. And this website doesn't give much more insight into it than that. (Other than that D's are generally positive, and R's generally negative. So maybe it's whether they are boinking male (+) or female aides (-) in their scandals?)

Even so, that particular graph shows clearly that McCain is rather close to the conservative median of the R party. A bit left of the center of the party, but that's not saying much as the whole party has been moving to the right. (As the D's have been moving to the left on absolute scales.) The animated graph shows that McCain jumped towards the center (L-C) around 2000 and has been drifting back right since. That's all you really need to know as his Y axis hasn't changed much at all in that timeframe.

[Naked Gents Rut]

And this website doesn't give much more insight into it than that.

Yes, it does. You're just too lazy or stupid to read the technical descriptions. They also clearly state what McCain's position on the y-axis dimension means...

In constrast, Senator McCain is a clear outlier in the Republican Party. His position down low on the second dimension indicates that he defects on a number of roll calls and votes with the Democrats.

Here's a good commentary by the guys behind those graphs...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080831/news_lz1e31mccarty.html

They understand that McCain is clearly a maverick, even if Aeson doesn't.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Naked Gents Rut
Yes, it does. You're just too lazy or stupid to read the technical descriptions. They also clearly state what McCain's position on the y-axis dimension means...

In constrast, Senator McCain is a clear outlier in the Republican Party. His position down low on the second dimension indicates that he defects on a number of roll calls and votes with the Democrats.

That description doesn't address what issues are "social/lifestyle" issues, if it is the whole range of issues, or just a certain subset. "Social/lifestyle" is certainly not a good eiscription for a scale of how likely a R is to vote with D or vice versa, so if they chose it for that purpose, they are idiots.

It also doesn't seem to work. Obama for instance is inside the cluster of D's, as you would expect... He always votes D... right? If the Y axis is how often they vote with their party, and McCain being at the bottom of the graph means he's more likely than anyone to do so, then Obama should be up at the top of the scale. But he's not. He's in a pack just above the center. So if you read the scale as how much they differ from their party, it doesn' work for Obama. If you read the graph as cluster, then it works for McCain being "different", but isn't towards the D cluster as they suggest, but actually further away from it than most of the Rs.

(And if you think that that's a "technical description" in any case, you're just an idiot. It's at best a vague overview.)

They understand that McCain is clearly a maverick, even if Aeson doesn't.

There was a time I would have called him a maverick, but he has abandoned too many of his positions and adopted more traditionally conservative stances lately for me to agree that he is still a maverick. He's just another R now.

The article you linked to also understand that he has moved towards the R on several issues. We may disagree about what amount of differentiation from a party would be required for "maverick" status, but it is very clear he has moved to the right overall from 2000-2008, following his party towards his party's president in that regard.

Here's where they say as much:

While he was running for president in 2000, he specifically called out the evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as agents of intolerance on par with Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton. And yet McCain reconciled with Falwell before his death and delivered the commencement address at Liberty University in 2006. McCain has long been a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform measures that include guest-worker programs and paths to citizenship for undocumented aliens already here, as well as enhanced border security. Yet after his own immigration measure – co-sponsored with Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy – failed to achieve cloture in the Senate, McCain disavowed the comprehensive approach in favor of the “border security first” approach favored by more Republican primary voters.

But perhaps his biggest heterodox-to-orthodox transformation was on the Bush tax cuts. In 2001, McCain said he could not “in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief.” But in 2008, he supports making all of the Bush cuts permanent and cutting corporate tax rates further. Given that large deficits and few evident economic benefits came from the tax cuts, it is hard to see any principle connecting his position in 2001 to that of 2008 except for opportunism

But I'm glad you are so adamant that you think McCain is a maverick, and moreso now than he was in the past. Now we can all laugh at your idiocy.

[Naked Gents Rut]

(And if you think that that's a "technical description" in any case, you're just an idiot. It's at best a vague overview.)

Jesus, you really are a dip****. The first ****ing link on the page goes to the technical description...

http://voteview.ucsd.edu/dwnomin.htm

Now stop wasting my time.

[Aeson]

Please point out where in that documentation that "Social/Lifestyle issues" is defined and the values used explained.

Though I must say it's good to see that you have given up on trying to argue against the fact that your own graphs show McCain moving towards the R caucus (and Bush) over the period of 2000-2008. And that your own articles back up that premise by giving examples of policy changes in that direction as well.

And it's nice you no longer are repeatedly proffering your ignorance as to the logic of my original statements either.

[Ramo]

In other Mavericky news, here's the McCain campaign cribbing from the Bush and Rove playbook:

The Alaska Governor accuses the Illinois Senator of “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country” with while speaking to GOP donors in Englewood, Colorado Saturday.

http://thepage.time.com/2008/10/04/palin-obama-palling-around-with-terrorists/

[Naked Gents Rut]

Obama was the one who chose to cultivate a leader of the Weather Underground to get his start in Chicago politics. McCain/Palin would have to be stupid not to hammer him on it.