Chris Cillizza Fix Poll: The Most Overrated Senator?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/fix-poll/fix-poll-the-most-overrated-se.html?wprss=thefix


Last week, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) won our Fix Poll as the most underrated Senators in the chamber. (We might have gone with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham but that's fodder for a different post.)

Today we tackle the other side of the question: Who is the most overrated member of the world's greatest deliberative body?

We've offered six of the most commonly mentioned showhorses of the Senate but are always interested in other suggestions so, if you have them, offer them in the comments section below.

The voting will stay open until noon tomorrow. Have at it!


Who is the most overrated Senator?
John Kerry (D-Mass.)
15%
John McCain (R-Ariz.)
28%
Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
11%
John Cornyn (R-Texas)
19%
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
10%
Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
14%


comment from a poster
Finally, a poll Republicans can win!
Next up, I nominate Inhofe for most *appropriately* underrated Senator.

McCaskill, underrated? She is on TV every other day. I wonder how they choose their guys.

As for Kerry overrated, not in the media, for sure. If, in 2004, they had given him a platform equivalent to what they offer to McCain these days, may be the country would be better off.

She's a lot more blue dog than I could have ever imagined. She talks a good bi-partisan game, but she rarely delivers for the Dems.

In fact, I suspect the results would be backwards. People will vote for the people they have heard the most about. The REALLY underrated will be underrated by this as well. (Until the last two months, I would have thought some like Conrad and Dorgan, who did boring things might have been the most underrated - I definately do not thing Conrad "underrated" now - he and his "co-ops" deserve their lack of renown.)

McGaskill gets more praise for less than anyone in the Senate I can think of. I like Whitehouse's votes, but he was in complete grandstand mode when he had the hearing and left early to fly to NYC to be on Olberman.

ACHIEVEMENTS in the Senate? Care to list them next to Kerry's ACHIEVEMENTS in the Senate, Chris?

Cillizza is pushing the corporate storyline to attack Kerry yet again - wonder why? Kerry's climate bill?

More likely concern that there have been too many extremely positive articles speaking of how Kerry currently has his hands on every key piece of legislation.

I think Cinzilla would be happier with Schumer being seen in that role. I suspect that the root of the problem is that Cinzilla who followed the 2008 race closely knows that Kerry's endorsement was critical for Obama. (Especially as, without Kerry's endorsement, no one of Kerry's stature would have called Bill Clinton out on his distortions. Without that Bill Clinton might not have descended to the level he did and there would very likely have not been a Kennedy endorsement.) Cinzilla always seemed to rank people like Warner and Bayh higher than they deserved. That and his attachment to Graham suggests taht he is a centrist and possibly a new-con.

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He contrasted that list with the better known "John Kerrys and John McCains". Ignoring the fact that within the Senate, there is only one John Kerry and one John McCain, in spite of his making their names plural nouns, Schumer has been incredibly prominent and every bit as much a media hog as McCain. I would be more likely to vote Schumer as "overrated" than under rated - if only for his trying to hog all the credit in 2006 for getting the majority back - ignoring the contributions of Dean and Kerry.

Dean, of course, did a huge amount and deserves the most credit for revitalizing viable state parties where they didn't exist before. Kerry should get credit for backing Webb in the primary, especially because Webb trashed Kerry in a near SBVT way in 2004 and refused to shake his hands because of Kerry's antiwar protesting in 1971. Miller likely would not have won. (There likely would have been no Macca moment) It is really not clear that Webb would have won that primary without Kerry's endorsement and the fact that Kerry raised nearly all the GOTV money he had to use in the primary. Kerry also led in ensuring that their was a Democratic plan on Iraq. Schumer was with the Clintons in srguing that it was better not to have a specific plan. Even though they trashed Kerry/Feingold, 7 months later all Democrats except Lieberman supported a variation of it.)

even acknowledge that it was Kerry's work that uncovered and exposed IranContra, BCCI, S&L problems, and CIA drugrunning. Had Kerry's work been acted upon in the 90s instead of deepsixed by the powerful throughout the 90s, there would have been no 9-11 event.

Kerry's WORK in the 80s and 90s tracking global terror networks (and their funding by official governments and their cronies) is WHY corporate media masters keep a TARGET on Kerry and why corporate wing of the Dem party join with the GOPs to keep sliming and undermining Kerry without let up all these years.

Cillizza will do his corporate hack duty and PUSH the Kerry hate, along with the underinformed followers and repeaters of the corporate media's spin against him.

he'd be in his 2nd term in the White House.

Dean got FAR more positive coverage in 2003 than Kerry did - when the coverage was when he would drop out. The fact is that Kerry won Iowa with virtually no media support. Dean had his media allies, Edwards had his - Kerry really had virtually none before Iowa, other than the reunion with Rassman.

The idea that Dean lost due to the "scream" is nonsense. He was the expected frontrunner and he got 20 percentage points less than Kerry. Had there been no scream, the two BIG stories would have been Kerry's huge victory and Dean's and Gephardt's surprisingly poor showings. The coverage - likely repeats of Kerry's exuberant victory speech and likely flashbacks to whatever footage they had of him - probably with lots of coverage of Rassman. For Dean, just as the media in Nov 2004 turned a very narrow defeat into a collage of mistakes - rather than a well run campoaign, they would have shown Dean at all his worst moments, which I don't have to list. If anything the people who lost were Kerry and Edwards, whose surprise results got less coverage than otherwise.

and had a very centrist, pro-big business record as governor.

And, if media was honest, they would have covered Kerry's actual position standing with weapon inspectors and against invasion of Iraq instead of calling him prowar.

international money laundering - that was passed only after 911, it should have been enough in addition to all those investigations to put him on a very short list of Senators who took on high risk/low reward but critical challenges. The fact is that for all who now see that international law enforcement is how to fight terrorism - Kerry wrote the legislation giving the US their "weapons".

Throw in that he and Kennedy wrote the precursor bill to SCHIP and he has a very strong list of accomplishments.

The media are transparent assholes.

Kerry mixed in with Baucus, Cornyn and McConnell?

This from the paper that denigrated Obama's Nobel.

I'm tired of Democrats who want to negotiate with Democrats, then vote against the bill that they helped create. John Kerry has spoken out and takes a stand.
I remember two famous quotes

You can lead, you can follow or you can get the HELL out of my way!
General George Patton

The worst place in Hell is reserved for those who do not take a stand, when necessity DEMANDS it!
Dante

Now, Kerry takes stands and means it. Republicans negotiate in bad faith and then sabotage the compromise they helped create.

he would not be the most overrated. Kerry may well be the main sponsor of two of the three most important pieces of legislation this year. Kerry/Boxer, if it passes is landmark legislation. The Kerry/Lugar bill on Pakistan is an ambitious bill that could have an enormous impact on the most dangerous nation on earth. (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_2_1_aa&usg=AFQjCNFd28anffJXwWe_L1wfyst0Mfxkjg&cid=1448579366&ei=bwDQSvjsIpSDlgf-nK6MAw&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fid%2F217022 )

Not to mention that in addition to legislation there are hearings. On Afghanistan alone, Kerry has contributed to what is thought about the options and their embedded assumptions. I guess Cinzilla didn't read - in the NYT - that Kerry is one of three people outside of the administration who President Obama is listening to on Afghanistan. Cinzilla might also consider that Kerry's hearing on Journalism has added to the discussion on how people will pay for news content in the future - you would think he might have appreciated that.

McGaskill and Whitehouse are actually overrated at this point by the media - which both are constantly on. I can not think of any legislation where either is key.

one of her constituents showed up at one of her heatlh care town hall meetings over the summer with a Rosa Parks poster ripped to shreds by a Teabagger, she sat back and let the cops drag her out and the crowd cheered like ignorant fools. Them JJP peeps let her have it!

Of course, the blogs are not the real world and sure, she endorsed Candidate Obama and was one of his top surrogates (Kerry the other), but that was unexceptable.

And me don't read The Fix, so Mr. Cillizza and the DC pundits can go choke on their Haterade and shove it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TfnC5MNdOg