The February 28th issue of National Journal made headlines with its report that John Kerry was the most liberal Senator in the country.
The finding was the result of the annual rating of member of Congress, an exercise the publication has performed since 1981. This year, editors of the weekly magazine selected 62 votes in the Senate to rate, ranking each vote as conservative or liberal on a scale of one (lowest) to three (highest).
And what about South Dakota?
Despite facing a tough re-election, Sen. Tom Daschle actually became more liberal in 2003 than the year before!
In 2002, Daschle's composite liberal rating was 69.0; that is, he was more liberal than 69 percent of his fellow Senators. In 2003, his rating was 79.8, nearly an 11 percent jump.
Again, the score reveals that Daschle was more liberal than nearly 80 percent of his colleagues. South Dakota values?
Breaking the analysis down into three categories, Daschle is ranked:
- More liberal than 82 percent of his Senate colleagues on economic issues.
- More liberal than 68 percent of his Senate colleagues on social issues.
- More liberal than 79 percent of his Senate colleagues on foreign policy issues.
The magazine also lists Daschle and Sen. Tim Johnson as one of the "home-state twins" of the same party, that is, a pair of Senators whose votes were closely aligned. Johnson's composite liberal score in 2003 was 81.2.
This isn't a hard story to write. After all, the National Journal has done all the work. Why hasn't this analysis been reported in South Dakota?
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