Where is Hillary Clinton on the Left Right Spectrum

[el_bryanto]

I know there are a lot of ways to measure politicians and political positions - just taking a simple one for this poll.

Bryant

8 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Hardcore Liberal
	0 (0%)
	Mainstream Liberal
	4 (50%)
	Slightly Liberal
	1 (13%)
	Middle of the Road
	0 (0%)
	Slightly Conservative
	3 (38%)
	Mainstream Conservative
	0 (0%)
	Hardcore Conservative
	0 (0%)
	This poll is hardcore bullshit!
	0 (0%)
	I like to vote!
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Hissyspit]

1. That's already been done for us:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12775222

[el_bryanto]

2. That's true - but I'm more interested I guess in the perception of DU of her

The poll isn't really about where HRC actually is, but where we think she is.

Bryant

[Hissyspit]

3. Fair enough. I did respond.

[Unvanguard]

6. Do we have any reason to trust the methodology of that attempt? No. n/t

[Hissyspit]

8. Do we have any reason not to?

Probably, but more specifics would be helpful:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

[Unvanguard]

11. You can't take the Political Compass test for someone else.

Even assuming its approach effectively captures real political differences. The result is going to be determined by what you put in, and what you put in is determined by your initial assessment of what a person's political attitudes are--which is exactly what is contested here. (A straight test of political positions, where all the questions are highly specific policy questions, might ameliorate this problem insofar as you could rely on a candidate's public positions, but the Political Compass mostly asks questions about political attitudes that are more subjective and less susceptible to that sort of approach.)

[rock]

13. To quote Randy Quad from National Lampoon's Christmas

[Hissyspit]

14. We can't take it basing it on her voting record in the Senate?

But we can judge her as liberal based on her voting record relative to a group of 100 wealthy Americans?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6497910

[Unvanguard]

17. US Senate votes aren't about Political Compass questions.

That's what I said, that the methodology would work if the test were about specific policy positions that could be straightforwardly mapped onto her votes in the Senate or other public positions she's taken. But that's not how the test is designed.

DW-NOMINATE, unlike the Political Compass, is based entirely on the votes a member of Congress takes while serving in Congress. There is no subjectivity of interpretation problem. You may think that any True Liberal would have to be the 1st or 2nd most liberal member of the Senate, instead of merely the 11th, but if that's the case you are employing a definition of "liberal" that is pretty foreign to the American political context. Clinton is a mainstream liberal by the standards of our politics. Maybe mainstream liberalism is too conservative; that's probably true. But it's a different argument.

[on point]

9. Thanks for interesting chart

[mylye2222]

4. She is more in Middle to me.

Although her voting records is liberal... her coziness with RW gets her middle.

[Bettie]

5. She's conservative

but, the possible candidates for the other party are so far to the right that she is liberal in comparison to them.

[Unvanguard]

7. She's a mainstream liberal.

This Daily Kos post does a good job of looking at the relevant data: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/31/1374629/-Hillary-Clinton-Was-the-11th-Most-Liberal-Member-of-the-Senate#

[olddots]

10. this poll is soft core bullshit

[hootinholler]

12. Holy Cow!

I have a feeling this will explain some of what we are seeing these days.

[Dawgs]

15. Sorry, you can't be pro-war and pro-(anti-America)trade and be anything but center or right.

It's just not possible.

[PowerToThePeople]

16. in between mainstream and hardcore conservative. n/t

[H2O Man]

18. Other.

Ms. Clinton is liberal on social policy; conservative on economic policy; and hawkish on foreign policy. She is, by definition, what the original neoconservatives were, very much in the mold of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.