Hamilton, Madison, and Jay

This blog is devoted to a variety of topics including politics, current events, legal issues, and we even take the time to have some occasional fun. After all, blogging is about having a little fun, right?

Name:
Location: Mesa, Arizona, United States

Who are we? We're a married couple who has a passion for politics and current events. That's what this site is about. If you read us, you know what we stand for.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

ACU Ratings Out -- Senator McCain Scores Well

Hat-tip to Ed Morrissey @ Hot-Air for this bit of good news for John McCain today. The American Conservative Union has released its rankings for Congress:


The American Conservative Union (ACU) the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization, has released its 2007 “Rating of Congress.” ACU has rated every member of the House and Senate since 1971 and the ratings are widely regarded as the definitive conservative assessment of the federal legislative branch.

ACU Chairman David A. Keene said it is not surprising that the 2006 election has resulted in Congress taking a sharp leftward turn.

“Elections have consequences and the election of 2006 was no exception,” Keene said. “The overall average score of the House of Representatives fell from 53.1 percent conservative in 2006 to 42.91 percent in 2007 while in the Senate the average score in 2007 was 42.67 percent conservative compared to 49.5 percent in 2006.”

Keene noted that, under the Democrats, the House became more polarized with 62 members, all Republicans, earning a perfect 100 conservative rating up from only 8 in 2006, while those earning a perfect liberal score of “0” numbered a record 138.

Voting patterns in the Senate were more stable but still showed a move to the left. The number of Senators scoring a liberal rating of 20 percent or less rose from 40 in 2006 to 48 in 2007. Five GOP senators scored a perfect 100 percent conservative rating, the same as 2006, although the number of Senators scoring a perfect rating of “0” rose from 7 in 2006 to 21 in 2007.


John McCain scored an 80 despite the fact he missed quite a few votes while running for president. The ACU looked at twenty-five votes for their 2007 scores. Of those, Senator McCain attended ten of them, and voted in line with the ACU on eight of them -- and all of them in line with his campaigning. How did Senators Clinton and Obama score?


Senator Obama scored a 7. Senator Clinton scored a 0. To contrast that, Senator Jim Webb scored a 16, and he is anything but a conservative Democrat, but the two Democrats running for president could not present a more stark antithesis compared to Senator McCain. Many Republicans still have not warmed up to Senator McCain, and it is likely due to the times when he jumped to the middle, or worked with Democrats on legislation. Yes, he does have a bit of a problem with the base, predominantly on the subject of immigration reform. But given the contrast between him and the Democrats running for their nomination we cannot see anything that would prevent people from supporting him.


This will hopefully put to rest any sort of worry regarding Senator McCain and how he would serve as president. The man stands for issues that many Congressional Republicans seemed to have forgotten. Smaller government, tighter control on spending, and end to earmarks and pork spending, and continued offense in this war. Throw in the fact that he can be trusted far more regarding federal judges than either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton and you have a worthy contender, and one that should be supported by the Republican base.


Marcie

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home