Politicians operate within a few % of their constituency
I don't mean all politicians, of course... just the ones who ever win office.
Officeholders are roughly in line with their constituencies. Long incumbency can allow one to drift a little one way or another, but even then not too far.
So there is little point in lionizing the people from the most extreme districts. I'm sure there are some conservative Republicans in New York who don't understand why they can't get a real senator like Jim DeMint... but they can't. They are not South Carolina. And some Democrats in Kansas pine for the Ted Kennedy of Kansas... but it isn't likely to happen.
So it is best to credit politicians for being outliers by the standards of their district.
I was thinking about this in terms of the Cory Booker thing, with some folks saying he has a lot of good Democratic views. I don't doubt it. Newark is 26% white and has massive poverty. It hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1907.
But relative to his constituency Booker might be unusually conservative. In Washington DC, it is common to have mayors denounced as DINOs who would be burned at the stake most places as frothing communists.
A lot of people couldn't grasp that Obama is fairly moderate by nature because before he became a US Senator he consistently represented one of the most left-leaning constituencies in the country. His early track record was, of course, to the left. And I think Obama is still to the left... by presidential standards. He hugs the left side of the narrow channel of presidential possibility with a national constituency that is pretty retrograde.
Manchin in West Virginia is definitely a DINO, but for all I know he might be among the most relatively left-wing politicians in the country. If Bob Kerry somehow wins the senate race in Nebraska he will be a huge DINO pain in the ass... but by Nebraska state-wide standards?
Anyway, a question...
Who do you think is the most relatively liberal Democrat? Who pushes the envelope of his or her constituency the hardest? Or most relatively conservative Democrat?
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