Reply #19: That wording is problematical, but Feingold has often been

[karynnj]

a not dependable vote.

A while back, someone posted a link that showed many Senators, including Sherrod Brown and John Kerry as only moderately progressive - while Feingold was the most progressive. Two things startled me, one was that for each Senator, it listed the Senator whose ranking was most similar - and they paired Kerry and Brown.I really like both, but they are different. Kerry is more a classic liberal, who is fiscally "responsible" and Brown is more of an economic progressive. So, to see where they were less "progressive" than Feingold, I looked at all the votes in the first half of 2009. (The report was for 2009 - I looked just at half and compared just Kerry and Feingold - because it was tedious.)

Here is what I found: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/karynnj/33

In summary, where they differed, Feingold was more willing to vote against spending, voted to weaken gun laws, voted the opposite way from Kerry on anything related to climate change, voted against reinstating some fairness doctrine, voted with the Republicans on two border security measures, and obsessively against earmarks.

Now, I like Feingold, but with the exception of the confirmation of Geitner, I think I agree with Kerry on all of these.