Happy Birthday JFK (predictable liberal quotes itt)

[Blart]

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." John F. Kennedy, Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party nomination (14 September 1960)

[barryr]

"someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,"

That is hardly what liberals around here act like.

[Blart]

"someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,"

That is hardly what liberals around here act like.

Liberals accepted healthcare mandates, an idea given to us by Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, et al.

Name the last new idea that conservatives accepted.*


*the gold standard is not a new idea, and Atlas Shrugged is not a new book.

[Garcia Bronco]

JFK was a conservative compared to the liberals we have now. Liberals today are all about what their country can do for them...not the other way around.

[Garcia Bronco]

Liberals accepted healthcare mandates, an idea given to us by Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, et al.

Name the last new idea that conservatives accepted.*


*the gold standard is not a new idea, and Atlas Shrugged is not a new book.

New ideas are typically repackaged old ideas. And just because an idea is "new"...that doesn't make it "improved" because human nature has not changed. People are still naturally concerned with their own self interests and survival.

[Pony Boy]

JFK was a conservative compared to the liberals we have now. Liberals today are all about what their country can do for them...not the other way around.

Bill Clinton is looking like a conservative compared to the liberals we have now.

[Garcia Bronco]

Bill Clinton is looking like a conservative compared to the liberals we have now.

Bill was very much in the middle for his day IMO.

[Blart]

Bill was very much in the middle for his day IMO.

Bill Clinton is looking like a conservative compared to the liberals we have now.


Bzzt wrong.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss223/blueaardvark/020512krugman2-blog480.jpg
http://www.voteview.com/dwnomjoint.asp


There is one party that is becoming increasingly extreme and fearful, not two.

[Garcia Bronco]

Bzzt wrong.

http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss223/blueaardvark/020512krugman2-blog480.jpg
http://www.voteview.com/dwnomjoint.asp


There is one party that is becoming increasingly extreme and fearful, not two.

Bill was in the middle while he was President. I read your link and I can't really understand how they got those numbers. IT sounds like it's voting record and opinion polls. Clinton dereged the banks and securities, dereged telecom, he cut spending in the executive branch during his first term

[Blart]

It's from a group of political scientists through several universities.


What they do is use roll-call votes to map politicians’ positions into an abstract issue space. You can think of this as a sort of iterative process: start with a guess about how to rank bills from left to right, use that ranking to place politicians along the same spectrum, revise the ranking of bills based on the politicians, and repeat until convergence. What they actually do is more complicated and flexible, and allows for multiple dimensions; but that sort of gets at the general idea.
Better links with explanations,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29
http://www.voteview.com/about.asp
http://www.voteview.com/dwnominate.asp
http://voteview.com/blog/?p=317

[Blart]

Found this on the wiki page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOMINATE_%28scaling_method%29). Pretty interesting, you can see the fall of Dixiecrats during the Civil Rights movement, and GOP extremism starting in the post-Keynesian 70's.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/NOMINATE_polarization.jpg/800px-NOMINATE_polarization.jpg