About those ADA Ratings for Kerry and Kennedy....
The Washington Post had an
article a few weeks ago about Kerry. Although in general the article fairly laid out Kerry's liberal voting record, it used some fairly loaded words: Kerry had opposed "
costly weapons systems and tax cuts for
wealthy Americans" (italics added). But what caugh my eye was this comment:
"Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group, rated Kerry more liberal than Kennedy during the time they served together in the Senate, although by only 1 percentage point."
This appears to be true, but the ADA also
rates Kerry 2 percentage points more liberal than Kennedy lifetime, and even this seems to understate the difference between the two. I don't know what's going on with the ADA's ratings, but they don't add up. Kennedy is show as having a 90 rating, but that actually appears too high. Kennedy's lifetime average rating prior to 1990 was 85; if we multiply that by his 27 years of service from 1963-89 that gives him a total of 2295. Add that to his 1990 onwards total of 1240 gives him a grand total of 3535, divided by 40 equals an average of 88.4, not the 90 shown in the ADA ratings. I thought maybe it was a rounding error, but even if Kennedy had been at 85.9 or so that would not lift his average above 89. I tried going back and adding up the individual years, but some of the years appear to be incomplete on the website.
What's going on? I would not be surprised if the ADA is trying to make Teddy not look so conservative next to Kerry.
