DU political spectrum: far left to centrist by candidate

[panader0]

Of our Dem candidates is DK the furthest left? Is HRC the most centrist? After DK who is next on the left? Obama? Edwards? How would you rate the candidates in order of liberalism?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. is there any real proof that obama is more liberal than hrc?

he has had less time in the senate and thereby less time to make the mistakes they all did after 911 but i dont really think he is more liberal

edwards is a populist. during this campaign he seems more liberal than during 2003-2004

[Perry Logan]

14. There is evidence that Hillary is about as liberal as Obama.

The following are polls from progressive groups, rating Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, on how often they vote for progressive issues. For each group, http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011142.php

Clinton Vs. Barack Obama (progressivepunch)
Overall Progressive Score: 92% 90%
Aid to Less Advantaged People at Home and Abroad: 98% 97%
Corporate Subsidies 100% N/A
Education, Humanities and the Arts 88% 100%
Environment 92% 100%
Fair Taxation 97% 100%
Family Planning 88% 80%
Government Checks on Corporate Power 95% 97%
Healthcare 98% 94%
Housing 100% 100%
Human Rights & Civil Liberties 82% 77%
Justice for All: Civil and Criminal 94% 91%
Labor Rights 91% 91%
Making Government Work for Everyone, Not Just the Rich or Powerful 94% 90%
War and Peace 80% 86%

[sniffa]

2. pretty much the reverse of the polls

gravel, kucinich, dodd-richardson, edwards, biden, obama, clinton.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Tilt your head to the left when you read this and it will answer your question

[panader0]

6. Kinda weird how there's no one in the upper left or lower right

[Kucinich4America]

10. The only thing that surprises me on that chart is Ron Paul's position

I would have thought he would ended up as a right wing libertarian, since that is his actual political ideology.

Proud to say I was a couple notches to the left of Dennis myself, when I took that test a month or so ago.

[TheUniverse]

12. How is Mike Gravel to the left of DK?

He supports the fair tax, which is replacing the progressive income tax with a flat sales tax.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. An attempt by the Political Compass people to rate them

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2007



Please read the notes on the definitions they use, and that where their 'centre lines' are is not necessarily the current midpoint of any one country. For comparison, all EU governments in 2006 were somewhere to the right of 'centre'.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/euchart

[RC]

5. Looking at this it would look as it the definition of center

has been stretched to the right quite a bit compared to say 10 to 15 years ago..

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. They've attempted to plot the British parties over time

http://www.politicalcompass.org/extremeright

You can see how Labour jumped up and right, under Tony Blair. I think it would be fair to say there's been a general move away from nationalised industries, and being more pro-business, in most western countries over the past 20 years. The site designers may well have taken their view of 'centre' from 1980 or so.

[TahitiNut]

7. Understand that the 'Right' on that chart is ECONOMIC (neo-)'liberalsim' ...

... which means "free market" or "laissez faire" trade ... lax regulations, weak on anti-trust, favorable tax rates, etc. Today's neo-conservatives are BIG on regulating human behavior (e.g. drugs, death penalty) but WEAK on regulating global corporate behavior - favoring corporate welfare over human welfare.

What most regard as Left-Right in the U.S. would be a diagonal line running from about 1-o'clock to about 7-o'clock. The more apparently 'comfy' DUers (particularly those in their mid 20's to mid 30's) are FAR more focused on the vertical differentiation than the horizontal. That's sad, since the 'Right' on that chart is where the bosses are - theose running the show. Dick and Junior's "base".

[Odin2005]

9. I definitely buck that pattern.

I'm -8.50 on the economic axis and -4.80 on the Authoritarian-Libertarian axis, putting me right around 8:00, to use your clock analogy.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. I think that's unfair to say that the horizontal is more important than the vertical

Take the war on pot, for example. Sure there are a lot of middle class people in their 20's and 30's that are very interested in seeing marijuana decriminalized.

But the people that would benefit the most are people who get prison terms for possession because they can't afford a good attorney to get them off.

Abortion rights are another example. People with money can cross state lines or go to another country to get an abortion if necessary. Those without money cannot.

Regulations against human behavior and laws against victim less crimes don't just make the lives of middle class people in their 20's and 30's more inconvenient. They can in many instances ruin the lives of middle-lower class people.

[TahitiNut]

15. Then don't say it. I didn't. (shrug) I guess it's a point that's tough to get across here.

So, try something. Take a look-see at where Clinton and Paul sit on the PolComp with respect to the array of THEIR party's candidates. Think about that. Then dig through the piles of horse shit in the plethora of posts by those DUers who express SOME approval/respect for those candidates and I think you'll see a rather pronounced blindness regarding the CORPORATISM that infests both candidates (again, compared to the array of THEIR party's candidates).

At the risk of over-simplifying and stating it somewhat inaccurately, the people who are exerting the most control by far over our national political process, both in determining candidacies and in composing our laws and regulations, are those who most benefit from the ever-widening gulf between the "have's" and the have-not's." Like any good illusionist, the political prestidigitators are quite good at distracting the audience ... manipulating the bright, simplistic, easy-to-understand issues of 'choice' and flag-burning and freedom of speech and crime and habeas corpus and torture and poverty ... pretending that these issues stand alone and are the "REAL" thing. A good pickpocket will often distract the mark by stepping on his toe or colliding with him while deftly and secretively lifting his wallet and passing it off quickly to an associate.

The more that greater and greater wealth and power is accumulated by the "top 0.1%" then the less control the bottom 90% have over their own liberties. When 'rights' become 'entitlements' (e.g. a person can have PRIVACY if he PAYS for it!), the interaction between the 'social' and the 'economic' spectrum becomes clearer.

In physics, there's a phenomenon of "spin" called 'PRECESSION' where a force exerted in one direction in translated into a reaction along an axis that's 90 degrees removed from the axis of the force. That's a mental model I see in the dynamics of the 'political process' as portrayed by the Political Compass.


(Sorry to be so right-brained about this ... but it's the bicameral way I employ systems thinking to comprehend the dynamics.)

[Basileus Basileon]

11. Without looking at any sort of ranking system, I'd guess

DK, Gravel, Edwards (this season's model), Dodd, Obama, HRC, Biden, Richardson.