ACLU Scorecards: Obama 82%, Clinton 75%

Those of you implying that this very progressive leader admires Reagan, is a secret Republican, etc are quintessentially full of shit.

Please post that.

just google edwards aclu rating it will pop up.

it is what it is...

and that depends on what the meaning of is...er..uh...is :rofl:

Tom's Take: During the 107th and 108th Congress, Edwards voted in alignment with the ACLU position 29% of the time, voted against the ACLU position 29% of the time, and was absent 42% of the time. This gave him a 50/50 rating from the ACLU, which is not particularly impressive for a Democratic candidate. On the other hand, it's worth bearing context in mind: Edwards served in the U.S. Senate from January 1999 to January 2005, during which most of the Bush administration's problematic counterterrorism bills were supported by the majority of senators of both parties. Edwards' biggest problem is that he simply wasn't present for six of the nine votes in 2004 on which the ACLU took a position. If he had been, his rating would probably be substantially higher.

..that he has little voting record to speak of.

I know why I believe Edwards would make the best President. And I'm not afraid to honestly talk about his weaknesses or admit that he has them. :toast:

But in his defense, he missed a good portion of votes while running in 04.

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/formersenators/p/john_edwards.htm

ACLU Rating: John Edwards has a 50% lifetime rating from the ACLU, the lowest of any top-tier Democratic presidential candidate.

announced candidates, all with differing positions on the issues, or, if you want, differing degrees of approach on the same issues.

If you are a Democrat in Indiana and North Carolina, you most certainly will not have a higher-ladder ACLU rating, or you will not be in office for long.

There would be virtually no chance at all for either of Vermont's U.S. Senators, for example, to be elected if they ran on their ACLU-rated votes in Evansville, Kokomo, and Charlotte. They'd be swept from office faster than you can say "practical politics."

Gravel, Kucinich, Richardson, Biden, and Dodd were also among our original 8, as is Edwards.

that it is important to be progressive when it is not politicaly expediant. Then the realists will bring us back to the point you made so I am not sure.

the GOP has extensively undermined American's sense of their own government by dividing them with wedge issues like gay marriage and border patrol issues, etc. The Iraq War, as horribly costly as it is and as insane as it definitely has been from the very start, is at one level a mere distraction so that the Bush administration can gut civil liberties which might ultimately empower the citizenry.

They're more than anti-FDR. They're anti-Madison & Jefferson, too.

to be a Senator from a conservative state.

The only Senator that I really, really trust in my bones is Feingold and he laid it on the line about Edwards...I'm going with his word over yours.

national effort and the ACLU, were it to evaluate his positions for national porposals currently, would come up with a number far higher than his Senate term, which does not say much about progressives' chances for electoral office in southern states.

If you and I have the dough, we can run for public office, no matter where we live. If we live in Berkeley, we can advance a far more progressive agenda than if we live in West Chester, Ohio -- John Boehner's district. No, we don't have to run. But if we run, we need to be enough of a practical mind to win, and once we win, practical enough to hold the seat next time.

Edwards defeated Lauch Faircloth, a Jesse Helms flunkie. I can't see a good reason to give someone like Faircloth uncontested access to the Constitution.

Thanks very much for the info.

Good to know! Thanks for posting.