On last night's show, Rachel explained that the line represents the 'moderate' position, but she didn't define what that meant, only that it stayed the same in all that time.

Maddow indicated that the yellow line represented a neutral - neither liberal or conservative position.

There are two types of policy that can be passed domestically: economic and social. A conservative is defined as someone who prefers governmental regulation and intervention in social policy, but prefers limited intervention in economic policy. A liberal is the reverse of this- a liberal prefers governmental regulation and intervention in economic policy, but prefers limited intervention in social policy. A moderate is someone who prefers a little bit in-between. Technically speaking a moderate prefers bits and pieces of economic policies across the board. So in other words a moderate might be communist in that they believe that the government should be the only body in charge of monetary value and regulation as opposed to the private sector. But they might also be socialist in that they support the VA and social security and medicare. But they might also be conservative in that they are against abortion and they love guns and are against gun control. But they might also be libertarian because they are for gay marriage and against marijuana regulation.

Historically speaking the majority of people are moderate and it is actually extremely hard to find someone who is either conservative or liberal. Usually when you do find someone who is conservative or liberal they are a single issue voter and that one particular issue happens to be a liberal or conservative issue.

In modern America lots of people identify as conservative (in fact more identify as conservative than liberal), however if you actually ask them what they believe you will find out very quickly that they are in fact moderate. Even Maddow herself, for all her liberalness, doesn't quite fit the mold 100%. Maddow supports guns (although she does favor small 'm' moderate gun control) and she supports military intervention in some circumstances (historically not a liberal position).

I am curious though as to how this study defined liberal and conservative for the sake of the research. I would argue strongly against ever placing Obama in the liberal corner and I would have other studies to back that up. This is especially true considering his take on economic issues. W/ that said- in all fairness to PBO- he has made many changes that are monumentally progressive including the repeal of DADT and extending same-sex benefits towards federal employees and military personnel (although limited). So to this extent I suppose I could also see him being labeled liberal.

Actually, I'm a moderate. We don't like to be defined by some ideological confines. We'll be more liberal or more conservative depending the exact nature of the situation at hand. Moderates can themselves be swayed towards a more liberal of conservative tenancy, because not all situations are perfectly rational... and thus can't be solved by completely rational decisions. BUT WE TRY... We try to avoid doing things "because we aught to"... or because party ideology deem it so... Which is why my second sentence is important... We don't believe in any strict adherence to any party rhetoric.

IMHO, the country is better off when the division is 30%-30%-40% (con/lib/moderate)... We're the ones in the middle trying to weed through the BS from both extremes to find a reasonable solution that resolves problems without completely ignoring half the facts and realities that the opposing extremes tend to love doing!

Right now, our biggest problem is that it seems like the balance is more 45-45-10!!! With the extremist on both sides getting worse and worse and elected politicians being swayed more and more towards the extremes and NOT towards real solutions!

WRONG on the federal/military "same sex benefits"! Unfortunately, since DOMA is the federal standard, neither federal employee nor same sex military couples currently receive ANY marriage type benefits (housing pay for married, listing same sex spouse as beneficiary, etc.) There is still a LONG way to go on this in federal/military sector. The only thing that changed with repeal of DADT is the military could openly be who they are (if LGBT) without being tossed out of military. With federal employees, LGBT hasn't been an issue. But NEITHER of these are currently eligible for benefits like opposite sex couples are...that will take a repeal of DOMA, which I hope is not long in coming!

You're welcome to call yourself a moderate Tatum, I won't contradict you, but I am talking about this in terms of political science. I am talking about this in the terms of people who study it. The majority of people in this country are moderates. People who self-identify as liberal or conservative will often be found out to be moderates once they are cross examined.

I think you may be confusing being a registered Independent w/ being a moderate. A 'moderate' has nothing to do w/ the political party to whom you are affiliated w/. You can be a moderate Democrat or a moderate Republican.

Our country hasn't really gotten more extreme in the sense of Democrats. Democrats by and large have not changed in their political ideology. The amount of liberals on the Democratic side in Congress is roughly the same that it has always been. There aren't any more in Congress than there have ever been. The idea that our country is a division of extreme leftism against extreme rightism is a myth. The right is the only one moving and they are moving intentionally and purposefully further right. The left has stayed virtually the same. If you are a moderate that's fine, but you must be able to recognize that the positions being advocated by Republicans are far right positions whereas those proposed by Democrats are usually moderate positions or slightly liberal positions.

FTR that's the whole point of this thread. You may want to go back and re-read the article and look at the graphs.

Liz this is not true. Benefits were extended to military personnel although they were extremely limited. Your partner can now visit you in the hospital and be notified if you are injured or killed on the battlefield, which could not happen before. Your partner can also live on base w/ you now which could not happen before. However your partner is not entitled to many of the other perks that you have. I acknowledged that the amount was limited. As for federal benefits this is also wrong. Federal employees can now cover their same sex partners under their insurance plan if they are in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage. They can also have their spouse notified upon their injury or death if they happen to be someone who works for the State Department, DoD, or DoJ to whom that would be applicable. I never said that they were equals, I just said that I could see PBO being labeled more liberal because he has taken such steps which are more than what any other POTUS has done before. To that extent he would be liberal.

In current political climate, "You can be a moderate Republican" is wishful thinking. Ask Olympia Snow. You will be run out of the party on a rail.

newsblog903:

You are correct.

The GOP is doing what it is told to do by its Masters, the 1%.

Rachel has seen clearly that the purpose crazy behavior of the Republicans is NOT because they are stupid. The Republican Party has been made a wholly owned subsidiary of the 1%. She recognizes that there is a long term objective in this.

Being polite, she says it is to move the United States to the Right, in fact the objective is the destruction of the core principles of American democracy.

The GOP knows that they must appeal to the the lowest instincts of the population who want to take "America Back", to a mythological 1850's. That's what the 1% order them to do.

The 1% orders them to do that so that their leased employees (the GOP office holders) will set the ground work for the Secular Caliphate of the 1%.

I think it is the least Liberal of all Democratic presidents, why his poll figures comes in so close to Ron Paul--one point off. He disappointed the Peace crowd AND proponents of medical marijuana, These are the groups Obama has thrown under the bus in his dream vote attracting scenario--appealing to conservatives.

They are looking at all of the issues and some of the President's administration's issues/statements have been very right wing. These include:

• Saying that Americans abroad believed to be terrorists can be killed without actually being in a battle.
• Not vetoing legislation that says that people in America accused of terrorism can be indefinitely detained by the military and the President can disallow access to the civilian court process
• Outsourcing of torture to allies that do not ban it instead of outright stopping torture
• He has actually lowered taxes instead of raising them (not far right wing but an opposite of Clinton I believe(I couldn't vote then so I didn't follow politics much))
• Signed the Affordable Healthcare Act which has the Republican designed individual mandate.

These are a few of the things that I can think of off the top of my head.

The first point is something to argue about if, as in the case of Anwar al Alawki, he had sponsored terrorist acts inside our country, and was therefore technically 'at war' with us.

The second point is pretty much mooted by three things: his signing statement, his promulgation of the rules for applying it, which as Grassley inveighed, completely wipes out the military detention part of the law and three, Dianne Feinstein's new bill amending that part of the NDAA which is gaining support now to get rid of the parts that Obama has declared unconstitutional.

Outsourcing of torture, initiated under Bush, I agree should be stopped.

Finally, for pete's sake!!! Clutching at straws a bit, are we? The Jane Hamscher firebagger lament.

The problem with GWB (and the modern conservative era... is that they've begun to define themselves not by their values... but simply as the antithesis of everyone else. Which means if liberals move more towards the center, they MUST more further right in order to draw distinction. Honestly I don't think GWB was that far right... but he surrounded himself with political zealots that used this separation tactic to win political and financial favor...

Ah thank you very much

They assume players have utility functions which are bell-shaped, right? That is, that the player (congressman, president) has a ideal point that represents their position along the ideological spectrum, and then there is a normal distribution that centers on that ideal point.

This is the same quantitative oversimplificaiton that got Wall Street in trouble.

The Poole paper says M-Nominate uses a normal distribution utility function. I am reminded of Margin Call where all the bosses of the company are completely baffled about how the workings of the quantitative risk assessment software their company owes its existence to. I don't think anyone wants read of the frozen lake of blood in the 9th circle of Quantitative analysis Hell, but there is a huge theoretical problem with modeling uncertainty.

Putting the discussion of the efficacy of such analysis aside, what is missing is concrete description of an example piece of legislation and how it influences a Conservative/ Liberal score in the second dimension. Specifically for what does a Presidential request mean- He presents a DOD bill and requests passage of the corresponding defense authorization bill. The bill has amendments inserted that he doesn't like so he vetos it. Does that score as a yay or nay? A president requests passage of a bill that 1) affirms women's right to birth control but has an amendment added which 2) denies gay partner coverage for medical care. The bill is voted down and never reaches his desk. Was the "request" a Yay or a Nay?

As an alternative to the 9th ring of hell, consider this animation: "Taleb educates a Quant". (youtube video here)

The terms and concepts have good Wikipedia articles for them. Most pronunciation is understandable with some exceptions.

• "Gowse" "GoeShen" refers to Carl Friedrich Gauss / "gaussian".
• "the confirmators" - obscure reference to the nobel prize economics committee.
• Quantitative analysts are sometimes called "Quants".
• Risk focuses on roughness in the tail (low probability, high cost events), so this discussion focuses on this particular danger, but the whole issue is non smoothness in the data. (You might intuitively see how Benoit Mandelbrot figures in here- the better modeling of roughness by other mathematical structures).

Geez, John - Thanks but this isn't easy.

Poole makes it seem easy. Wall Street Quants made the casino seem easy.

Even this graph fails just a superficial sniff test- Obama less interventionist than Clinton? Nuts.

Accurate quantitative analysis is real real hard to get right. I wouldn't be at all surprised this scheme is only useful for highly constrained definitions like government intervention in the economy and not what Poole & Co. calls the second dimension (social issues/ "civil rights").

"For people indulging themselves in their neo-primitive fetishist passions with numbers, these charts can seem to provided needed emotional confirmation, but viewers are entitled to be skeptical for a large number of reasons."

LOL. Of course they are entitled to be skeptical, this is science not religion. Also those scores come with confidence intervals.

DW-NOMINATE is a statistical technique not software. The fact that you do not understand this distinction, makes me question if you understand what NOMINATE and other scaling techniques are actually doing.

You seem to be lumping all statistical analysis into the same Financial Quant bathwater. This technique is absolutely nothing like the statistical work that Wall Street quants do. Taleb's critique in not relevant here. Multidimensional scaling is about measurement, thats it. It is not really "modeling" anything, in terms of prediction or dynamics.

Trying to systematically measure a latent trait like ideology is difficult. But it beats the alternative which is what you and other are doing. You cherry pick a few examples of bills, and try to claim they are good measures of ideology. You then place them on your own idea of what the left-right dimension is and say "see those egg heads measures are wrong". But all you have done is a really poor and biased version of what Poole and other political scientist have tried to do in a rigorous, careful and statistically appropriate way. As always "the alternative to doing statistics is not “not doing statistics,” it’s “doing bad statistics.”"

If anyone is interested in the history of ideal point estimation and the debates and critiques around them here is a good source:

http://voteview.com/ideal_point_history.htm

Another brilliant comment from Contessa. Were you the inspiration for Bob Dylan's classic refrain, "Idi-iot Wind - blowin'through the" (comments in this blog)? What a contrast to what we're getting from roberson, mouzer, and all the rest. You don't belong here - bring a fact or two here, make a serious argument - or curl up in front of the TV and watch Fox and go away