I guess Claire isn’t as bad as I thought she’d be. Thats not saying much, of course.

This is newsworthy? The Guitar Hero Institute(Conservative group) just released their report court and amazingly it is the exact opposite of this one.

Wow! It is AMAZING the way all of the “R’s” have “F’s.” It almost looks like there is a bias!

Mr. Jadhav: This is not newsworthy material. Any group whose findings are loaded with such clear bias is plain worthless.

I’ve plainly noted the point-of-view of this scorecard, but this is something that is also going to be touted by senators and congressmen, as they see fit.

Shoot the messenger, fine, but real questions remain up for discussion:

First, what does this ranking say about Democrats Bean and McCaskill as well as Republicans Johnson, Kirk, LaHood and Emerson?

Second, let’s consider the legislation used as metrics:
– the Accountability in Contracting Act (H.R. 1362)
– the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act (H.R. 2895)
– the Amendment to Remove Legalization Provisions from the Immigration Bill, (S.AMDT. 1157 TO S. 1348)
– the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (H.R. 976)
– the College Cost Reduction Act (H.R. 2669)
– the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act (S. 2205)
– the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800)
– the Energy Independence and Security Act (H.R. 6)
– the Estate Tax Repeal Amendment (S.AMDT. 578 TO S.CON.RES. 21)
– the Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 2)
– the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act (H.R. 4)
– the Temporary Tax Relief Act (H.R. 3996)
– the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act (H.R. 3688).

Are those topics a fair snapshot of middle class issues? Read the report, first, but what do you think?

Third (if you want to “go meta” with this debate”), what exactly is the middle class? It’s almost a political buzz word that has been uttered by just about every political candidate? But who is actually in this group?

Clearly this is a biased report against Repubs…but I guess true nonetheless.

As I have always said, Repubs receive F grades, Dems receive A-C grades. That hasn’t changed and never will.

Patootey!

Bill, Are you talking out both sides of your mouth again?

Which is it?

Patooty what,

Mr. Jadhav, will you be “reporting” on other scorecards? I’m guessing not, so I will take the liberty of posting a few myself.

1. American’s for Tax Reform has lifetime scores for Presidential candidates. McCain, 82.7%. Clinton, 6.7%. Obama, 7.5%.

2. Citizens Against Government Waste scorecard for St. Louis area legislators: Durbin, 15%; Obama, 30%; Bond, 48%; McCaskill not rated yet. Oh, McCain, 95%.

3. NRA: Claire McCaskill, F; Kit Bond, A; Barack Obama, F; Jay Nixon, D-; Kenny Hushof, A.

Good for you, Nick- go get them!

NRA are you kidding me? We had a candidate in rural Mo that had recieved the endorsement of the NRA. He used it on his campagin literature that he was “proudly endorsed by the NRA”. Then people in the district started getting phone calls from someone saying something like “Hello Mr. fillin theblank, like you I’m a member of the NRA and I’m supporting Mr. Republican. Like you he believes in the 2nd Ammendment. The NRA stands for National Republican Party. Nothing more nothing less. Ask former Rep. Dan Ward about the NRA. He had a lifetime voting record of A+ and because Mr. Ward took the same position as the president on extending the Assault Weapons Ban the NRA endorsed his republican opponent.

As far as the rest of the surveys go. What does anyone expect from a “progressive, left leaning think tank”?

Here’s another report card regarding Veteran’s issues. Anyone want to guess who has the better voting record on Veteran’s issues according to this site?

http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfJAN08/nf012108-1.htm

oops here’s another report card from citizens for tax justice. Wonder how our legislators scored.

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/reportcard2006.pdf

“Now that the Arizona senator is the presumptive Republican nominee, it’s worth asking what sorts of tax policies he would push for as President. Our honest answer: We have no idea. He has held several views and his recent explanations don’t quite explain his various policy permutations. As our Congressional report card covering the years 2001 through 2006 shows, CTJ has given McCain an “A” in some years and an “F” in other years. But one might think that the “real” John McCain could be found by digging deeper, farther back into his history. “

Rural Dem - The NRA, of which I am proud to be a life member, has been an advocate for the rights of gun owners since 1871. They have endorsed many a Democrat over the years. Of course, they endorse more Republicans than Democrats, because the Democratic party is the home of anti-gun activists in America. If your Congressman supported the “assault weapons ban” then he lost his claim to being a supporter of the NRA’s intepretation of 2nd amendment rights.

As far as your other scorecards, they merely serve to point out that liberal groups are now creating front organizations which appear to be advocates for conservative causes, but which are in fact intended to deceive people into voting for Democrats. In the last Presidential race, some wealthy liberal anti-gun people created a fake “gun rights” organization which proceeded to attack the NRA, and endorse only candidates who supported “common sense gun regulations.” Sounds like a lie to me, but hey, all’s fair in politics, right?

How could the NRA support Bush in the 04 election cycle when he supported an extension of the Assault Weapons Ban?

”This is a president who has been so good on the Second Amendment that it’s just unbelievable to gun owners that he would really sign the ban,” said Grover G. Norquist, a leading conservative and an N.R.A. board member who opposes the weapons ban. ”I don’t think it’s sunk in for a lot of people yet.”

Funny thing about numbers you can post your links, I can post mine. Guess it depends on your point of view.

You’re right, BU, it depends on your point of view. If you are a liberal, you’ll be interested in candidates who received a high rating from the Drum Major Institute. If you’re conservative, you’ll be interested in people with high ratings from organizations like those I cited. If you’re President Bush, you’ll be interested in getting this over with and going home to Texas. It all just depends.

My only question here is, why are the lefty ratings the only one they bothered to post on the blog?

Nick I’ve been reading many of your posts for a long time and didn’t think I’d ever nod my head in agreement. It’s all about perspectives. Pretty much that simple. Our position in life seems to dictate many of our political decisions.

I’m only guessing here but I’d say that it’s probably the most recent report card that was submitted to the post. vawatchdog.org just recently relased their reportcards but I don’t know if they sent them to the Post or not. Could make a difference.

Thanks for writing about our scorecard.
To respond to the readers questions we simply grade members on how they voted on the legislation that our analysis shows to be the most important to the middle class. A member of congress’ grade is simply a reflection of his or her voting record, not based on his or her political party. Just ask Rep. Chris Smith -(R)NJ who earned an A.

As we explain in the report:

“TheMiddleClass.org 2007 Congressional Scorecard issues each Member of Congress, as well as the House and Senate as a whole, and each party a letter grade based on his or her votes on selected pieces of legislation in 2007. We selected bills that, if passed, would have an impact on the squeezed middle class as well as on the aspirations of low-income Americans striving towards a middle-class standard of living. For a complete list of bills that count toward legislators’ 2007 grades.”

So as Adam said feel free to argue with the legislation we chose– suggest which bills you’d have chosen instead for example. But the grades are based on the votes. That’s the deal.

Thanks for writing about our scorecard Adam. I think your response to the commenters is pretty dead on.

As we explain in the report, we aren’t grading members of congress based on how much we like them, we are grading them based on how they voted on key pieces of legislation that would help or harm the current and aspiring middle class.
As we say in the report:

“TheMiddleClass.org 2007 Congressional Scorecard issues each Member of Congress, as well as the House and Senate as a whole, and each party a letter grade based on his or her votes on selected pieces of legislation in 2007. We selected bills that, if passed, would have an impact on the squeezed middle class as well as on the aspirations of low-income Americans striving towards a middle-class standard of living. For a complete list of bills that count toward legislators’ 2007 grades,”

So feel free to debate whether we picked the bills that you would have picked or anything like that but the grades members earn reflect their votes. That’s it. Just ask New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith– a Republican who earned an “A” for example.

Thanks for running this info. Is it really a surprise to anyone that the Republicans care less about working class folks than the Democrats as a general rule? Who gave a giant tax cut to the top 5% of Americans while only supporting a one-time $600 rebate check for the rest of us? Bush and Co. The grades would only have been suspect if they went the other way. I just think this posting and the scorecard provides a good way to differentiate between those politicans who say they care about all Americans (all of them) and those who actually vote in favor of the middle class (sadly, far less). If this is not news what is? Thank God someone is reporting about the issues and how people vote rather than party bickering, politcal scandals and the superficialities of election politics.

Bravo Adam!!!!!!!!

p.s. The group is non-partisan and many Republicans got decent grades (and some Democrats got bad ones).