"My voting record has been more in line with the Democratic approach than Republicans, and I'd been urged for many years by (Vice President) Joe Biden and (Gov.) Ed Rendell to become a Democrat.
Specter claims that he votes more in line with Democrats than Republicans. However, the most comprehensive voting scorecards all indicate that simply is not true:
According to DW-Nominate, Specter votes more with conservatives than with progressives. Among Democrats, he votes significantly more conservatively than every Democratic Senator, including Ben Nelson. In fact, his voting record is even more conservative than Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins:
DW-Nominate Scores, 2007-2008 Arlen Specter: 0.091
Susan Collins: 0.074
Olympia Snowe: 0.034
(Precisely Moderate: 0.000)
Ben Nelson: -0.068
Max Baucus: -0.193
(the higher the score, the more conservative the voting record)
According to Progressive Punch, Arlen Specter has a significantly more conservative lifetime voting record on crucial votes than all Democrats, including Ben Nelson. He is much closer to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins than anyone else:
Progressive Punch Lifetime Crucial Votes Max Baucus: 64.35%
Kay Hagan: 56.41%
Ben Nelson: 43.58%
Arlen Specter: 27.62%
Olympia Snowe: 27.16%
Susan Collins: 24.20%
Specter's voting record isn't anywhere close to how most Democrats vote, according to Progressive Punch. He is under 50% in all four of the overall Progressive Punch measurements. Further, he is behind every Democrat on three of the four measures, and behind everyone except Ben Nelson on the fourth. Still further, he is even behind Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins on overall 2009 voting patterns.
According to National Journal, in both 2007 and 2008, Arlen Specter voted with the conservative position more often than he voted for the liberal position (54.5% conservative in 2007, and 55.2% conservative in 2008). Further, in both years, he voted more conservatively than every Democrat, and even more conservatively than Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
Of course, we didn't need voting scorecards to tell us that Specter wasn't being truthful about voting more like Democrats than Republicans. After all, we can just look at Specter's own campaign ads from just five years ago:
Bush: "I can count on this man, see that's important. He's a firm ally, when it matters most."
Santorum: "Arlen is with us on the votes that matter."
Now, there were times when it certainly seemed that voting like a Democrat actually meant voting with Bush when it mattered the most, so perhaps Specter is simply confused rather than distorting his record. However, no matter what the case is, the numbers show that no Democrat, and not even Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, voted with Bush and Santorum as often as Arlen Specter.
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