interesting chart on 538.com

[Bucky]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/marco-rubio-announcement-2016/

What's interesting to look at is the disparity between the red and blue dots. The [font color="#900000"]red dot[/font] is the politician's voting record, the [font color="#00a000"]blue dot[/font] is his/her public statements.

Thus, if the red is to left of the right, this politician votes closer to moderate than his rhetoric would suggest. If the blue dot is to the left, then this is a politician who talks a moderate game, but then does the bidding of rightwing interests. The wider the gap, the bigger the hypocricy.

Note the big gap in McCain's verbal "maverickism" compared to his actual performance in office. Compare to how relatively more moderate Kasich was in Congress in comparison to his more incendiary talking points. But down on the bottom, note the HUGE gap between sane talk and extremist voting by the Paul dynasty.

[FBaggins]

1. Very interesting

I certainly didn't expect Newt and Reagan to show up as less conservative than the current congressional average.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

2. Look how far apart the statements and votes of both Ron and Rand Paul are,.

[11 Bravo]

3. The phrase "lying mother-fuckers" springs to mind.

[JaneyVee]

9. Wow. Say one thing, do another.

[Turbineguy]

4. Comparatively speaking,

Barry Goldwater would make an attractive alternative. He was intelligent and in favor of the separation of church and state.

And Nixon was an out and out leftie.

[truebrit71]

5. Might explain why the knuckle-dragging base hates Christie Creme so much...

[HereSince1628]

6. It'd be interesting to see something similar for democrats

or an across the board comparison between dems and republicans and their liberalness vs conservativeness

[Bucky]

8. Possibly, but of course what is more or less right wing lends itself to linear equations

the more nuanced liberal approach to what works best in government sometimes defies the simplistic left-right construction of pet conservative issues

[DefenseLawyer]

10. Im not sure how anyone could have a voting record to the right of Mike Pence

He was a total wing nut while in Congress. I guess the things they are voting on have just gotten crazier.