On Feb 25, 2011, at 12:45 PM, SA wrote:
> There's a misunderstanding of the concept of Congressional polarization. It's about relative positioning, not absolute positioning. In other words, it's not about ideological intensity, it's about ideological consistency.
>
> Polarization doesn't mean that those toward the left are moving further left and those toward the right are moving further right. It just means those more toward the left are getting more consistent in their more-left voting, while those toward the right getting more consistent in their more-right voting. It means that Chuck Schumer is voting with Republicans a smaller percentage of the time - not that the bills Schumer is voting for are becoming more boldly liberal.
>
> National Journal only calculates who voted with whom - it doesn't evaluate the "liberalness" or "conservativeness" of the underlying bills being voted on.
Yes it does: http://nationaljournal.com/magazine/key-house-and-senate-votes-used-to-calculate-the-ratings-20110224?page=1.
In any case, like I said one party is insanely right wing and the other is just tepidly so. But the increased polarization in voting patterns is at odds with what a lot of people say on the left, which is all about a narrowing difference between the parties. That just doesn't fit with the historical record.
Doug