Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919
The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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12-Jan-2020
The Conservative Review Political Scorecard
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Welcome to Hearing the Falconer. This blog promotes independent thinking and political moderation. It also recommends good books that can help you sharpen your thinking skills and think through your own moderate political philosophy. It is smart, independent, moderates who will save the world! Let's get to work!
Political moderates can be lonely. Fortunately, we can use various political scorecards to look for fellow moderates.
This scorecard is from The Conservative Review. They look at how members of Congress vote on key issues and then give them a score from 0% (extreme liberal) to 100% (extreme conservative).
You pick a state, pick a chamber, and then look at the scores. You can then click on a name to see which votes they were graded on, and how they voted on each one.
Since I'm a moderate maybe I would like people who score about 40% - 60%? Since I am a moderate who leans left maybe I would like people who score about 30% - 60%? Since this scorecard is VERY conservative (Ted Cruz gets a "B") maybe I should look for people who score from 20% - 50% here?
One bad thing about this scorecard is you can only look at one state at a time. As I scroll through the data I find Lisa Murkowski, Republican Senator from Alaska who scores 22%, and Kamala Harris, Democratic Senator from California who scores 21%. I do like both of them.
Maxine Waters, Democratic Representative from California, seems too liberal to me and she scores 17% here. Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas, seems too conservative for me and he scores 80% here.
(By the way, if you can't think of anyone too liberal for you then you are NOT a moderate. If you can't think of anyone too conservative for you then you are NOT a moderate. But I digress.)
I think Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too liberal for me (better than Trump, but I would prefer a more moderate Democrat) and they score 23% and 22% respectively.
So on this scorecard I guess I will look for people from 20% - 50% but be a little wary about people in the 20s.
Yes, as a political junky this is what I do before dawn on Sunday mornings, with Forensic Files playing in the background and stacks of books and papers tumbling around me at my desk. This is who I am....
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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library
Books for Independent Thinkers and Political Moderates
If you want to support Hearing the Falconer please click on the book links in this post and make a purchase. These are excellent books that will help you sharpen your independent thinking skills and build your own moderate political philosophy AND, Hearing the Falconer will earn a commission. Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your support!
Washington: A Life
Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today
The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides
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Copyright © 2020 by Joseph Wayne Gadway
