right, i think this makes sense, and to a certain degree addresses carrol's point about quantifying the things the parties differ on. that said, though, it seems like a lot more analysis is necessary -- and maybe it's there, i just haven't read it. given the significant role of riders and poison pills in legislative activity, legislators lots of times wind up voting for or against something they didn't mean to, while conversely, they take riders and poison pills as excuses to vote for/against something they really wanted/didn't want to vote for. if you see what i mean. there must be a way to account for this (or to prove that it doesn't matter), but it would take an actuarial analyst to see the trends, and then it wouldn't be at all clear what it means to us.
Even on this wiretapping bill, Dems voted overwhelmingly against.
sort of. 28-17, among dems in the senate, with 4 wussing out of the vote altogether, including boxer and harkin. more striking (and in some ways more distressing) is GOP unity on the bill -- no one in the senate defected.
in the house <http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml>, 41 dems voted for (181 against -- that *is* overwhelming), but, again, only 2 GOPs voted against (186 voted for).
wrt house dems, i think you're right. it's pretty clear that they were on the right side by a margin of over 4:1. and all in all, it looks to me like this supports the idea i think we all share of rightward pull from the GOP and occasionally reluctant following by the Dems (even when they're in power).
but what do we make of the difference between dem behavior in the senate and dem behavior in the house?
i have to admit, what i'm really hearing in this discussion is that it's worth abandoning any third party and going partisan dem hardcore. which would really disappoint me -- and would be entirely too satisfying to a couple of my friends. :)
j
-- http://brainmortgage.blogspot.com/