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Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites
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Points taken about who they had commenting, especially Rahm and Christie, but...
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Heidi Heitkamp was rated the third most conservative blue dog, and literally to the right of Republican Susan Collins.
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You are so full of shit whenever you talk about Democrats moving to the right, or being more right-wing than Republicans.
There is
one aggregate overall measure (not issue-specific) in which Heitkamp rates more "conservative" than Susan Collins. But her Trump score?
54%. Susan Collins's for the same period?
77%
On DW-Nominate, the liberal-conservative dimension...
Heidi Heitkamp rates a -0.122 (negative is more liberal) while
Susan Collins rates a 0.112.
On almost every measure, Heitkamp gets ratings to the left of Collins. Which makes sense, she's a Democrat and Collins is a Republican. Heitkamp voted for
Harry Reid to be majority leader, and Collins voted for Trent Lott, Bill Frist and
Mitch fucking McConnell, and that's
the most important vote a Senator can make to bring about liberal vs. conservative outcomes. Heitkamp wanted to confirm Merrick Garland, and Collins was willing to go along with no more than an expression of worry. Heitkamp voted
against the GOP tax giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, and Collins voted
for it. Heitkamp voted
against Kavanaugh, and Collins voted
for him.
Heitkamp was definitely one of the most conservative Democrats, and would probably call herself a moderate. But if you really can't tell which one is more conservative, you don't have much business opining on American politics. And if you can, and you just like to exaggerate how conservative Democrats are as a tactic, well, it's worth pointing out that that's your thing and your proclamations about such things are pretty much worthless.
But yes, she's moderate and on most measures she rates left of Collins, but only by a little bit. Apparently that isn't outrageous enough, so you need to pretend that she's "really" a Republican. But these scores aren't designed to take into account things like... the votes that don't happen because you voted for a Democratic or Republican Majority Leader.
But I would say that Heitkamp is fine as a guest to discuss the primary, as long as there are more progressive Democrats on the panel. Because guess what? About of half of Democratic voters would call themselves moderate or conservative. There is a place for that perspective, and it's useful to understand why, for example, Joe Biden is still polling in the lead.
(Also guess what? There's NO DEMOCRAT currently in the Senate who is to the right of Susan Collins on the most common overall ideological measures. Which, again, do not give extra weight to voting for MITCH FUCKING MCCONNELL. There
is a difference between the parties, and even Joe fucking Manchin is preferable to ANY Republican, and that's not even by comparison to WV Republicans.)