There’s no perfect way to evaluate how a senator votes, but one metric I like is Progressive Punch’s Progressive Score vs. State Tilt. What this rating attempts to do is to compare the progressivism of members compared to what you’d expect considering what state they represent. Based on that, Sherrod Brown has the most progressive score and Chris Christie-appointed Jeff Chiesa has the least progressive score. Lamar Alexander ranks 72nd, slightly less progressive than Jeff Sessions and slightly more progressive than co-senator Bob Corker.
As I said, this isn’t a perfect measure, but it’s meaningful. And it means that Lamar Alexander is far from the most liberal member of the Republican caucus in the Senate. But Lamar is getting a primary challenge anyway.
Tennessee state Rep. Joe Carr (R) announced Tuesday that he will challenge Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) in the Republican primary.
On local radio, Carr said he was running because Alexander was “the most liberal” member of the state’s GOP delegation…
…A coalition of Tea Party groups published an open letter last week urging Alexander to “retire with dignity” rather than seek a third term.
“Unfortunately, our great nation can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship, two traits for which you have become famous,” the letter read.
Back in 2011, Lamar quit his leadership position within the party.
“Stepping down from leadership will liberate me to spend more time working to achieve results on the issues I care the most about,’’ Mr. Alexander said in a Senate speech.
That decision probably was related to the debt ceiling fiasco. I am not sure if Lamar really has the desire to stay in the Senate but, so far, he’s given no indication that he plans to retire. In any case, he’s at least a moderate in the sense that he’s interested in legislating and knows that compromise is necessary. That doesn’t mean he votes like a liberal, though.
I can only assume, being a tea party challenger to Lamar!, that his signs will read:
Joe Carr!!!1!!!!eleven!
What do you expect in a state that Democrats have seemingly given up on. And when we do run candidates there they are all Blue Dog/DLC types. Isn’t Nashville represented by that douche-canoe named Jim Cooper?
This appears to be a golden opportunity for a pick up, if a candidate can be recruited for the 2014 Senate race.
I really hope Democrats resist the urge to help out poor Lamar for falling victim to the monster he and his party have so carefully created and nurtured. There isn’t a serious Republican candidate or office-holder who is safe from the ultra-orthodox fever sweeping through their party, and it’s their own stupid fault. It’s not like they haven’t been warned for 30 years or more that this demagoguery they’ve been cultivating was someday going to turn on them.
Here’s another perspective Calvin. I’m in Indiana and I am absolutely THRILLED to have Blue Dog Joe Donnelly rather than RWNJ Mourdoch for Senator.
We had a Tea Party idiot as mayor and now we have a Republican mayor. He’s a guy I went to High School with, who is a good guy that has held many county positions and cares about this town. He was my one Republican vote and that was because no Dems ran. I had the choice of GOP or Tea. I would much rather have voted for a Democrat but I made a choice for someone who was MUCH, MUCH better for this town.
It was difficult for me to vote for the Republican mayor but it wasn’t about ideology. It was about real consequences for our homes, businesses and life. The wheel turns and it’s up to us to keep our eyes on the path we want to take.
If Carr beats Alexander, will TN DEMs nominate Harold Ford?
No….please no.
He doesn’t even pretend to live there any more.
You had a post about Zinn and Daniels at one time. Don’t know if you follow Masson’s Blog, but he has a post up about Daniels and Bill Bennett. When Daniels was gov he wanted Bennett used in Indiana schools.
Rant zone: Daniels is such a little weasel. End Rant.
Daniels Favored the History Stylings of Bill Bennett http://www.masson.us/blog/#sthash.VlPGYnvK.dpuf
For a guy like me, one book more isn’t going to make much difference. Another book will be yet another voice in the cacophony. But, when we are talking about the educational system, it’s a different story. A lot of the people consuming these texts are going to get maybe one or two passes at most periods in history. The narratives in those texts are going to be locked in. That’s why you have such political concern over history texts. Tom LoBianco has another installment in Gov. Daniels’ dabbling with the history curriculum. We know that he vehemently disapproved of Howard Zinn’s take on history. Now we learn that he was embracing the history stylings of Bill Bennett.
Another Masson fan here. I got to meet Doug at the first Blog Indiana a couple of years ago.
That must have been interesting. I haven’t looked extensively, but his is the only good Dem blog I’ve found. I think he does a great job.
I mean the only good Indiana Dem blog!
There once was Blue Indiana, done by a law student – Thomas Cook, IIRC, that was quite good. Now the URL resolves to the Indiana Democratic Party site. Here’s a sample from the dusty archives.
It’s incredible that being a moderate in the GOP essentially means that you’re interested in governing.
Governing conservatively.
Making meaningful progress in moving the ball downfield in the direction desired by conservatives is now evidence of one’s ideological unreliability.
We see plenty of people on our side engage in the same type of thinking, but they sure as heck aren’t swinging primary races against solid liberals.
Yes but it’s still governing, which, apparently is not a goal of your average wing-nut.
Carr is from Middle Tennessee – Murfreesboro, Rutherford County.
Alexander is from Eastern Tennessee.
I wonder where Tea Party strength is geographically in Tennessee. I guess we’ll find out in the primary. I’m thinking that PVI will not predict how the split of votes between Carr and Alexander will come out.
For what it’s worth, eastern Tennessee was pro-Union in the War of Secession.
Just means they got accustomed to the Republican label a lot earlier.
Noted without comment:
“Unfortunately, our great nation can no longer afford compromise and bipartisanship…”
The next mayor of America’s largest and most powerful city will either be a lesbian, a miscegenationist, a black guy or a Chinese guy (and the other Dem is a Jewish pervert).
21st century politics are increasingly becoming the domain of the historically marginalized. Compromise and bipartisan aren’t easy anymore.
Well, they’re definitely not easy if you’re a white straight conservative male who doesn’t like lesbians, mixed-race people, black people, or Chinese people.
It was fun for people like Joe Carr to hate on minorities when it was acceptable (i.e. more or less throughout American history). But yeah, that party’s finally ending.
Fighting NC State Senator Ellie Kinnaird resigns her NC Senate seat to battle GOP voter suppression
Sen. Ellie Kinnaird has decided that operating within electoral politics alone is not sufficient for progressive victories in North Carolina. The game is on.
I found it interesting that she is giving national attention to the exact way the GOP is stacking the deck at the local levels. This will be helpful for Dems to recognize the same efforts in other red states.
Former NC lawmaker and Maddow discuss Republican `warp speed’ assault on voting rights
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/20/former-nc-lawmaker-and-maddow-discuss-republican-warp-speed-as
sault-on-voting-rights/
Kinnaird also backed up Maddow’s account of various local elections boards, each stacked with conservatives, aiming to curtail voting and early voting rights at universities — and particularly at historically black institutions — across the state, in apparent defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision affirming them in 1979.
“So, shut them down at Appalachian State. Shut them down at Elizabeth City. Shut them down at Winston Salem State,” Maddow recounted. “This has all happened within the past week. Voting rights under assault at warp speed in North Carolina.”
I think that one of the points I have made for years is that every office matters in an election. And progressives for too long have been fixated on the President and sometimes the Congress. Soil and water commission can lead to planning commission and then to county commission or city council then to the legislature. Board of elections and state secretaries of state are essential to having fair elections. State secretaries of labor can influence how well wage and hour, occupational safety, and other workplace related laws are executed. School boards are the cockpit of the privatization fight right now. And golly, get more progressive Democrats as sheriffs.
It’s happening a warp speed because it is a unified strategy on the part of the Koch-ALEC-AFP-Art Pope group of people who have done their political homework about how all these governing bodies work and how to hamstring them. It keeps flying under the radar because of the intense focus within the Democratic Party on campaign marketing to the exclusion of all other parts of the political process.
You are absolutely on target as far as I’m concerned. I’m not for tearing anything completely down, but I do see the need for a transformation of DNC. I see that as an exciting prospect for me as a voter.
I’m in Indiana which had two liberal senators when I moved out of state many years ago. Democrat for mayor of this small town with a legacy family that held offices for a long time. Now Democrats are really struggling. I think for local and county offices at the last election there were 3 Dems running. One of the legacy family Dem had been in office before but lost by about 7 votes. No Democrat running for mayor at all. That was my one Republican vote because there was a Tea Party candidate and the Republican who I knew well. The Tea Party guy held office before and we voted him out thank goodness. I could go on and on. The government is made up of people. Every vote counts.
The most important things are the old standbys though. Register Democrats, educate them about candidates and about voting state/local elections and GOTV.
Koch and the GOP would be nothing if they didn’t get people to vote for them.
The standbys however come late in the process. The early parts of the process are fielding candidates, getting memorable and popular issues to run on to build name recognition, a whole lot of informal behind-the-scenes networking to build a volunteer base before announcement–one that allows checking the appeal of the issue-orientation–and getting all of the filing paperwork set up and campaign machinery ready to go. Even for the office of soil and water commissioner. Those early things take a lot of thought and local knowledge that the established party officials, even county and precinct chairs might not be aware of or might have special interests that would try to squash a campaign on those issues.
The Koch-GOP M.O. is disinformation and confusion, and then voter suppression either informally or through the institutions that manage elections. What worked in Wisconsin and North Carolina in 2010 was the idea that Obamacare was cutting Medicare and that the GOP was saving Medicare. What got North Carolina in 2012 was Pat McCrory’s veneer as a moderate; he is the parrot of Art Pope who is the puppet of the Koch brothers.
It keeps flying under the radar because of the intense focus within the Democratic Party on campaign marketing to the exclusion of all other parts of the political process.
Because the GOP, and related groups, have the money to do that. People of the Democratic coalition don’t have the money for that. Or else they are sell-out tools like NYC mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn(see Stop & frisk) or of the DLC/Blue Dog type.
How does resigning do anything but make the state senate even crazier?