Fact Checker: How liberal was Joe Biden?
By Glenn Kessler Glenn Kessler The Fact Checker Email Bio Follow May 17 at 3:00 AM “I was always labeled as one of the most liberal members of the United States Congress. If it makes you progressive to mean that you are for Medicare-for-all or it makes it progressive, then that wasn’t the standard of what constituted in the past what is progressive.” In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden brings years of experience — and many votes that will be subject to scrutiny.
That meant he was no Paul Wellstone or Ted Kennedy , but neither was he one of the conservative “blue dog” Democrats who voted more consistently with Republicans. In fact, Biden’s party loyalty score in Voteview is fairly high. Among Senate Democrats, Biden generally was found right in the middle of the pack, as Voteview analyzed the votes.
He noted that “if you are in the middle of your caucus, it is hard to say that you are also in its progressive wing — unless you think more than half the caucus is in that ‘wing.’" There is also an ideological rating scale conducted by the National Journal, which in 2007 gave Biden a 94 percent overall liberal score, but also as low as 59 percent in 1997. Brendan Nyhan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, said National Journal’s ratings are not as reliable an indicator as Voteview because National Journal looks only at a selected subset of votes, not all votes, which results in a wide variation of the ratings from year to year.
And here’s an Associated Press article from August 2008: “Sen. Kit Bond says Barack Obama’s choice of Sen. Joe Biden as a running mate makes the duo ‘the most liberal ticket ever’ for Democratic Party. The Missouri Republican on Monday called Biden a nice guy but said he will push for massive tax increases and government-run health care. Bond also criticized the Democratic running mate for opposing expanded offshore oil drilling.
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