Matt Reed: 'Centrist' tag for Posey, Nelson riles readers
Want to tick people off? Describe politicians they oppose as "centrist."
That's how I described Congressman Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, on Tuesday and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, back in June. Talk about heated responses.
"You've lost credibility with me," reader Bill Hogsed said in one of the more polite notes about Posey. "Voting no on a debt extension because it doesn't include a (balanced budget) amendment makes a statement, and it isn't 'centrist'."
"Posey the Centrist? Posey the Birther wacko is more apropos," online reader Greenman posted.
Feedback about Nelson included several variations of, "Calling a raging liberal like Nelson a 'centrist' only confirms your extreme-far-left bias."
Was I wrong about Posey and Nelson?
Track records
To check, I reviewed several vote-tracking databases that calculate politicians' positions on the political spectrum as well as some "report cards" kept by liberal and conservative groups.
- Voteview.com, a database created by political scientists, portrays Posey as conservative, based on an analysis of votes on hundreds of bills. But he's less conservative than 27 percent of the House membership. The data portray Nelson as just right of center among senators. His record is more conservative than 53 percent of all senators who served in 2010, the Voteview data show.
- Nelson appears on a list of "centrists" as scored by data compiled by National Journal, a left-leaning magazine aimed at Washington insiders. Posey missed the list, but not by much. On more than 90 bills tracked, Nelson voted conservative on 38 percent and liberal on 62 percent. Posey voted liberal on 31 percent and conservative on 69 percent.
- On a scale of 1 to 100, the American Conservative Union gave Posey a score of 83 (a "B") and Nelson an 8 (an "F") based on 24 bills that mattered to conservatives. The bills included the repeal of the ban on gays in the military, an expansion of child-nutrition programs and a moratorium on new offshore oil drilling during the Gulf spill -- all opposed by the conservative union.
- On the same scale, the League of Conservation Voters scored Nelson as an 86 and Posey a 20 based on 15 bills meant to promote energy efficiency, cleaner estuaries and stronger Clean Air Act enforcement, among other things.
Crossing the divide
To be sure, Posey and Nelson will campaign to their parties' bases, where they both score highly. But the data show that neither is among the quartile of most-conservative or most-liberal members of the House or Senate. On economic issues, both have crossed the ideological divide at least one-third of the time.
Ironically, Posey was portrayed as a hard-liner for refusing to support a debt-ceiling deal that did not include a vote on a balanced-
budget amendment.
But that issue hardly belongs to conservatives or Republicans alone. Posey's Democratic opponent in 2008, Dr. Stephen Blythe, endorsed the same balanced-
budget amendment. The only president to have proposed and signed one (four, actually) since 1970 was Democrat Bill Clinton, a centrist.
"It would help provide long-term economic stability for our nation," Blythe told me by email Wednesday. "Republicans should be careful what they wish for -- a requirement would definitely mean increasing taxes and slashing the military budget."