Interesting rating of "Conservatism" of candidates by 538's Nate Silver

[Zyphlin]

So the recent story from 538's Nate Silver asking if Jeb Bush is potentialy "too liberal" to win the Republican nomination, I noticed a really neat chart. Silver...using a mix of congressional voting records, campaign donor information, and public statements on issues...sought out to rank "how conservative" many popular past and future candidates for the republican nominee for President. The thing that jumped out to me was that his rankings...which he acknowledges are imperfect, but still provide an empirical means of comparing each person...in many ways broke away from the "norm" that we hear.

For example, one of the most popular refrains of recent times was that Ronald Reagan would be considered a "moderate" Republican today compared to average republicans. Yet Reagan is about 7 points away from the "average" congressional Republican right now. Compare that to the double digit difference of many of those called RINO's today...12 points for Romney and McCain, 14 points for Jeb, more than 20+ points for the likes of Dole and Huntsman...and the point becomes a little bit murky.

It becomes even murkier when you see some of the very surprising scores for people typically referred to as "far right". For example, Sarah Palin comes in below Ronald Reagan, and 10 points below the current average republican congressman. Tea Party Governor Nikki Haley actually is even farther off, 12 points back (that's McCain/Romney territory). Bobby Jindal comes in the same place as Reagan, while the crazy extreme social conservative Santorum comes in only 2 points ahead of Reagan and 5 points back from the "average" congressional republican.

Rubio and Huckabee are dead on the "AVC" line, while Rick Perry is just before it and Ted Cruz just after it.

Meanwhile...much like you expect to see the likes of Guilliani or H.W. Bush on the "less conservative" side, some on the "more conservative" side do fit with the narrative. Rand Paul is the farther right on that scale of modern people, with Goldwater taking the crown over the past few decades.

All and all, it's an incredibly interesting chart. How much it REALLY tells us about each candidate, how "conservative" they really are, or how conservative they'd really govern is highly questionable. But it does raise some interesting questions and offer an interesting way to measure the various candidates against each other. And it does offer some pause in terms of some of the stereotypical talking points that are out there for many on both sides.

Myself included in that. I've long held (and still do) that Huntsman is largley mislabled as a broad "moderate", being more of a social moderate and a more traditionalist in most othe cases. However, only Christie has a more moderate rating then he does.

Also note, all of these candidates are being considered on a scale where "conservative" is still the default. It's not a scale of "liberal or conservative" as much of one of "HOW conservative".

Definitely some interesting things to think about

 

[OrphanSlug]

This would be more useful if it distinguished between fiscal/government conservative from social conservative, as those two things are becoming increasingly difficult to be in alignment.

 

[Deuce]

Rand Paul has an interesting spread...

 

[Lutherf]

This would be more useful if it distinguished between fiscal/government conservative from social conservative, as those two things are becoming increasingly difficult to be in alignment.

I think that a lot of Conservatives spend too much time dwelling on the "social conservative" issue. The upshot is that if you are a Conservative you believe in a federal government which is tightly restricted by the Constitution and a nation where the individual citizens are responsible for their own successes and failures. Under such a construct there is little room for government intervention regarding social issues.

 

[Lutherf]

Rand Paul has an interesting spread...

I was looking at Palin's too. He shows her policy statements to be on par with Bob Dole which, based on the liberal rants against her, is kind of amusing.

 

[OrphanSlug]

I think that a lot of Conservatives spend too much time dwelling on the "social conservative" issue. The upshot is that if you are a Conservative you believe in a federal government which is tightly restricted by the Constitution and a nation where the individual citizens are responsible for their own successes and failures. Under such a construct there is little room for government intervention regarding social issues.

Agreed, which is why I question the above results in terms of actually being a government/fiscal conservative. One of the benchmarks of the OP graphs is statements on the issues. Well, what issues? If the issues are limited to just fiscal matters then the list is very wrong. Bachmann, for example, is not more fiscal conservative than Cruz (or Santorum and Portman for that matter.) But on social issues Santorum and Bachmann would not be that far apart, but Bachmann and Paul should be further apart. That makes me question what the issues are used by whoever put this together and the weight of those issues in comparison to one another.

No matter, the political landscape of what is a "conservative" today includes a laundry list of social issues that I would argue trump fiscal issues.

 

[Anagram]

Myself included in that. I've long held (and still do) that Huntsman is largley mislabled as a broad "moderate", being more of a social moderate and a more traditionalist in most othe cases. However, only Christie has a more moderate rating then he does.

I think that's probably a case of governors not having a legislative record to put into these ratings. Much of Huntsman's, (and Christie's), public issue statements have been trying to position themselves as moderates, and drawing contrast from other Republicans. And there's no record included in this from his time as governor where he acted as less of a moderate, especially fiscally.

 

[LagerHead]

I think that a lot of Conservatives spend too much time dwelling on the "social conservative" issue. The upshot is that if you are a Conservative you believe in a federal government which is tightly restricted by the Constitution and a nation where the individual citizens are responsible for their own successes and failures. Under such a construct there is little room for government intervention regarding social issues.

Most conservatives tend to believe that way as long as they are issues about which they want to be left alone. When it comes to issues like drugs, however, I don't meet to many conservatives that want others to be left alone. They are perfectly Ok sending the government after you if you smoke a joint, for example.

 

[Zyphlin]

That makes me question what the issues are used by whoever put this together and the weight of those issues in comparison to one another.

My fault, I should've included the actual stories that the graphs came from rather than just the images.

Story one: Marco Rubio
Story two: Jeb Bush

Basically, the "issues" part of it was based on their public statements listed on "OnTheIssues.org".

So looking at Jeb, for example, he's got statements from "ontheissues" concerning:

Abortion
Budget & Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy & Oil
Environment
Families & Children
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Government Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Jobs
Principles & Values
Social Security
Tax Reform
Technology
War & Peace
Welfare & Poverty

So I can see a number of potential "social" umbrella groups there.

Now, what I don't know is whether or not Silver's group came up with their own way to "grade" the candidates based off their stances at "OnTheIssues" or used that sites "VoteMatch" scale to determine it.

I'm going to look into that a bit, cause I'm now curious. As a note, the "votematch quiz" is basically a scale designed by a political scientists (if memory serves) that assigns certain issues to certain scales (economic, social, etc), and gives points based on how strongly against/in favor of a particular issue a candidates statements suggest they are.

 

[Zyphlin]

Hmm....so I'm looking at it more. I can't figure out any way to make the VoteMatch scores sync up with what the 538 guys are scoring it at. So no clue exaclty how they're calculating the scores. I can say though, OnTheIssues does have "social" issues mixed in with their various categories.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Hmm....so I'm looking at it more. I can't figure out any way to make the VoteMatch scores sync up with what the 538 guys are scoring it at. So no clue exaclty how they're calculating the scores. I can say though, OnTheIssues does have "social" issues mixed in with their various categories.

That was my concern based on the results, which is not a big deal but I would argue that because social matters are mixed with fiscal matters then we have a real issue here on Bachmann (for example) really being as conservative as noted, or Palin (for example) being as moderate as noted. If you ran the list down social mattes alone, they would damn near overlap but in the graph they are on opposite ends of the spectrum and I find it hard to believe that fiscal matters makes the difference. Something to consider is all.

 

[Zyphlin]

That was my concern based on the results, which is not a big deal but I would argue that because social matters are mixed with fiscal matters then we have a real issue here on Bachmann (for example) really being as conservative as noted, or Palin (for example) being as moderate as noted. If you ran the list down social mattes alone, they would damn near overlap but in the graph they are on opposite ends of the spectrum and I find it hard to believe that fiscal matters makes the difference. Something to consider is all.

Well, don't know how 538 does it...but looking at how OnTheIssues does it (0 social is most conservative, 100 economic is most consrevative)

Bachmann has a social score of 30 and a 90 on the economic side

Meanwhile Palin has a social score of 30 and a 70 on the economic side

So OnTheIssues has then both staunchly social conservative. They have Palin staunchly fiscally conservative while Bachman is extremely fiscal conservative.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Well, don't know how 538 does it...but looking at how OnTheIssues does it (0 social is most conservative, 100 economic is most consrevative)

Bachmann has a social score of 30 and a 90 on the economic side

Meanwhile Palin has a social score of 30 and a 70 on the economic side

So OnTheIssues has then both moderately social conservative. They have Palin moderately fiscally conservative while Bachman is very fiscaly conservative.

Well, one thing is for sure. With information like this we have a good explanation why the 2008 and 2012 Presidential results turned out the way it did. Perhaps there is some truth to "conservatives" staying home on both accounts.

 

[Zyphlin]

Well, one thing is for sure. With information like this we have a good explanation why the 2008 and 2012 Presidential results turned out the way it did. Perhaps there is some truth to "conservatives" staying home on both accounts.

Changed my language up in the above post to probably better articulate what the OnTheIssue graph is really saying.

When I was using "moderate", I meant "moderate" between what would typically be seen as a "moderate" republican and a "extreme" republican on that particular scale.

I changed up the terminology.

Someone near 50 on either scale would be "moderate". Someone in the 30 social / 70 econ scale would be a "stuanch". Someone near the 0 social / 100 econ would be an "extreme"

 

[CanadaJohn]

Hmm....so I'm looking at it more. I can't figure out any way to make the VoteMatch scores sync up with what the 538 guys are scoring it at. So no clue exaclty how they're calculating the scores. I can say though, OnTheIssues does have "social" issues mixed in with their various categories.

I believe Jeb Bush is more personally socially conservative than he is publicly socially conservative. It seems to me, he makes it a point not to dredge up and get bogged down in the social conservative mud on the public policy front. He stays away from the "judgmental" issues as being more personal decisions than public policy. It's one of the reasons I feel he'd be a good President and keep government focused on what government should be doing and not on trying to manage the personal lives of the American citizenry.

 

[radioman]

So OnTheIssues has then both staunchly social conservative. They have Palin staunchly fiscally conservative while Bachman is extremely fiscal conservative.

This intrigues me.
I remember Bachmann being extremely concerned that a proposed ban on earmarks could affect projects in her district.
Admittedly, this was a few years back.....2010 I think.
Maybe the fact that she opposed spending in the other 434 congressional districts contributed to this lofty ranking.

 

[Deuce]

I was looking at Palin's too. He shows her policy statements to be on par with Bob Dole which, based on the liberal rants against her, is kind of amusing.

She was in favor of cap and trade as a market-based solution to deal with the significant issue of global warming.

Until about January of 2009.

Not sure what happened then to change things.

 

[Zyphlin]

This intrigues me.
I remember Bachmann being extremely concerned that a proposed ban on earmarks could affect projects in her district.
Admittedly, this was a few years back.....2010 I think.
Maybe the fact that she opposed spending in the other 434 congressional districts contributed to this lofty ranking.

If you're talking about action she actually took in congress, that has nothing to do with the "OnTheIssues" score necessarily.

538 uses three measurements. Congressional record, donor record, and public statements record.

OnTheIssue's is how they got their public statement info.

OnTheIssue's bachmann page is open for anyone to go see, and the numbers I took were from that. If you want to see what is or isn't included you could simply go visit their page.

 

[Dayton3]

Not a big shock.

Many of those listed as being "not as conservative" as Tea Party members of Congress or whatever seem to be mainly governor or former governors.

In other words, people who have actually had to GOVERN which inevitably means making deals, compromises, toning down your most far right instincts all for the sake of getting things done and governing effectively.

Congressman in safe districts are under no such pressure to moderate whatsoever.