Does anybody remember the year 2002? The reason I ask is that, as I'm looking at the Democratic Presidential Candidates, I looked at the Liberal/Conservative indices from the Congressional Observer for Senators, and for some reason all four of the candidates from the Senate were much less liberal in 2002 than in 2001 or 2003.
I'll try a table:
| Senator | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 |
| Graham | 93% | 74.5% | 95% |
| Edwards | 90% | 77.5% | 95% |
| Kerry | 97% | 89% | 99% |
| Lieberman | 93% | 82% | 94% |
None of them were up for re-election in 2002, so that's not it. Was there some terribly liberal legislation that they all gakked? Or was it such a good year for liberals that it was hard to hit those nineties? Barbara Boxer stayed above 95% liberal, as did Mark Dayton, Richard Durbin, Pat Leahy, Barbara Mikulsky, Jack Reed, and of course Ted Kennedy. Paul Sarbanes, out of Maryland, hit 100%. The late, great Paul Wellstone is left off the Congressional Observer list; but tops out the National Journal's list of liberals for 2002. Anyway, any ideas?
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
getting access to their scoring system or detailed results requires a paid subscription.
however wasn’t that the year of USA Patriot? i wonder how they counted that. and various war resolutions…? i’m not sure. between those and wriggling for the election, at some point some of those “support the president until the smoke clears” votes were going to be assessed against the lefties, even if their constituencies supported them at the time.