Sen. Hutchison: Moderate Or Right-Wing Nut ?

She's doing it again. Every time she comes up for re-election, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison comes back to Texas and poses as a moderate. It doesn't seem to matter that she's spent the last six years as Georgie's lap dog, voting with the president as he tries to dismantle the Constitution, as he embroils us in an unneccessary war, as he tries to destroy our economy and as he tries to gut social security. She smiles and shakes hands and generally tries to avoid any real political talk [such as debating her opponent], because to do so would expose her for the right-wing nut-job that she really is.

I have discussed this before, but recently I found a resource that puts this truth in blunt and undeniable mathematical terms. Over at VoteFromAbroad.org, they lay out the facts very nicely. They show us the senate ratings by several progressive groups. If a senator supported all left-wing causes, they would get a 100 rating, and if they supported all right-wing causes, they would get a 0 rating. A moderate should fall somewhere between a 40 and a 60 rating. Ratings from the following groups were used:

American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU]
Americans for Democratic Action [ADA]
Children's Defense Fund [CDF]
League of Conservation Voters [LCV]
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League [NARAL]
National Parent-Teacher Association [PTA]
Service Employees International Union [SEIU]

Let's be generous and call someone a moderate who scores between 30 and 70. What do you think? Using this rather generous criteria, is Hutchison a moderate? Let's look at the numbers:

ACLU...................22
ADA.....................15
CDF.....................11
LCV.....................05
NAACP................15
NARAL................00
PTA.....................07
SEIU...................00

75 divided by 8 = 9.333 [this is the average score]

Goodness! Not a single group rated her in the moderate range, and the mean average rating was a pitiful right-wing score of only 9.33. She's not even close to being a moderate. Some of you might be saying at this point, that these organizations would rate any Republican low. That is just not true. Listed below are the scores of some REAL moderates [and they are Republicans]:

Arlen Specter...............33
Mike DeWine...............37
Olympia Snowe............52
Susan Collins...............53
Lincoln Chafee.............67

Kay Bailey Hutchison is not now, and never has been, a moderate. Her rating of 9 shows her to be a right-wing nut. That is the truth. Don't let her fool you with the moderate act. It is time to boot her out of office. It is time to elect a senator that will put the interests of ordinary Texans first. Barbara Ann Radnofsky is the person I'll be voting for in November. I hope you will also.