*waves to Jane, everybody!*

Hello everyone..Call 202-506-3907 to Join and chat with me!

Wow, hey Jane! BTW Kelly rocks. I love having KC on my Tuesday Late Nights,and what an awesome idea.
It’s also an awesome idea to join FDL now and help support what we do here.

I really really encourage people to call & join.

We actually have all the House and Senate base data together now. That was the easy part. The hard part comes with combing through voting histories and weighting individual votes and a lot of other things that don’t come free or cheap.

Kelly, I just wrote about Willie Nelson, who decided to endorse a GOP candidate for president because of his pro-pot record, then thought about some, and changed his mind and decided maybe the DEM was a better choice. I guess he looked at the overall voiting record, etc after the fact.

We are planning our next Election Planning session during the first week of June. Next week we are having Glenn Greenwald on to speak on our members webinar.

On the phone with Charles, who got calls from me AND Marcy today.

That happens a LOT.

The NRA scorecard is one of the most effective ones in politics. Members fear it.

Wouldn’t it be great to have one of our own – feared by members?

edit: Members of Congress that is…

Oops, Members of Congress fear it that is…

Unfortunately there is no way possible for a politician to fear anyone that they know, no matter what, will vote for them.

It’s simply NOT possible.

Much like the only reason they fear their big money donors, is because they KNOW those big donors will take their money elsewhere. I.E., they know they can’t count on, no matter what, that money. They have to earn it.

Unless and until enough folks on this side realize that all the braying, threatening, cajoling, ridiculing, etc. in the world isn’t going to put any fear into a politician the way actually withholding your votes would, it’s not possible to make them fear our scorecard.

Though I do hope we get there someday, and am looking forward to such a scorecard myself. Thanks for all you’ve done on that front Kelly.

The Shiba Inu puppy cam ain’t got nothin’ on this…

Somehow the eternally contemptible Joe Lieberman is to blame for all of this.

(just kicked in my modest FDL membership… about time!)

Hey FDLers

I just wanted to point out that Open Secrets just recently opened up their API, their application programming interface.

http://www.opensecrets.org/action/apis.php

That means it’s possible to write software tools, including online software, that taps into their database of who’s getting funding from where.

Once written, such a thing wouldn’t require much maintenance.

Don’t know it that’s helpful, but maybe it can be part of this

Well, that would be a longer term goal.

The NRA has been around since 1871, and never endorsed a Prez candidate till Reagan in 1980. They spent $10M in the 2008 election. So, yeah there’s some big advantages there.

But there’s another thing about scorecards; the voter knowledge effect.

There’s a lot of political rhetoric out there, but the bottom line is the votes that show the congress critter’s choice pattern, as well as their legislative sponsorship pattern.

When it’s laid out simply, it adds to a voter’s knowledge and sometimes changes people’s minds about their vote.

That’s awesome! I think the members’ webinars are a great asset.

Sweet! Thanks for that.

I included the main OpenSecrets page for all the Members of the House here – Citizen Whip Tool

And one of the reasons I know there is a great interest in scorecards, is that whip tool, with zero pimping after my initial post, has been downloaded 114 times. (I can barely believe it!)

A full on FDL progressive scorecard? Huge.

Next week we are having Glenn Greenwald on to speak on our members webinar.

If I miss that, could someone please ask him to announce his candidacy for the President of the United States on that webinar??? *g*

I fully intend, unless some unforeseen progressive 3rd party or D primary challenger emerges, to write in Glenn Greenwald on my ballot next year, for the Office of President of the United States, but would love it if his name was already printed there.

And IMO Mr. Greenwald would make a fine POTUS.

I saw Andrew Vachss, the author, speak many yeas ago. He said one reason that the right was so effective was because they would focus on one issue at a time. That is one of FDL’s most effective tools, that we mobilize on an issue and MAKE CHANGE.

Second that. The relationship of still co-opted “progressives” supporting Democrats always reminds me of that talking head shot in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where Ferris talks about what will happen with Cameron if he doesn’t learn to chill out.

…he’ll marry the first girl he lays, and she’ll treat him like shit. Because you can’t respect someone that kisses your ass…

I like that one issue idea. That is partly what makes the NRA so powerful. I think our issue should be Social Security. We need to make “grand bargains” by the ruling elite impossible.

Hey Kelly,

There’s some interesting potential in connecting with Open Secrets’ data in an intelligent way. Depending on what criteria you work out for this scorecard, it might be possible to automagically include who’s on the take for how much in any particular business or political sector.

I don’t know how overwhelmed the FDL coding people are with day-to-day stuff. I do a little bit of web development as a sideline to my normal work. If you think it’s fruitful, I could at least look into what’s involved and report back.

Interested?

Bingo!!

Heck yeah!

The corporate cash component is a must have – that’s how one gets issues fully exposed and fleshed out.

Just signed up. Keep up the great work. This is a great new idea to try to push the conversation, and subsequently the mode of action, forward.

Excellent – thank you!

O.K. I’m a videoguy and motion graphics person – so I can’t promise geek genius. But I’ll dig into it a little and get back.

Best way to reach you?

Heh, my email’s not a secret; it’s kelly1 DOT canfield AT gmail DOT com

Next Person to Join FDL Membership at ANY level and send me an email at: members@firedoglake.com that says I joined! Will receive Third World America, by Arianna Huffington!!!!

dean DOT mougianis AT gmail DOT com

Seems like gmail is a must for the fashionable progressive.

I’ll let you know what I find out.

Data integration, business intelligence, and analytics are core components of my business’ services.

I don’t know that Open Secrets exposes any kind of API, and I don’t know how they feel about scraping data from their site, however if we can aggregate this information I can assist in making it useful.

One of the projects I started working on in my state was sussing out state and federal district demographics and comparing them to their existing representatives. Essentially trying to create a barometer for how far away in socioeconomic status the people are from their government. There’s no way (due to time constraints) that I could take this on nationally, but with some help it’s a serviceable idea.

“corporate cash component is a must have”…

couldn’t agree more, especially if we can determine corporate contributions by industry and specific firms. Using O’Sellout as an example, progressives shouldn’t get too excited about any candidate who gets a lot of his funding from the FIRE sector. Hindsight is definitely 20/20.

If they get a lot of money from good old fashioned ambulance chasers and unions, chances are they may be our kind of people.

Hi Nathan.

Open Secrets just opened up their API:

http://www.opensecrets.org/action/apis.php

I was going to look into it for Kelly, but you seem MUCH MORE qualified to do that.

Very good idea. It’s not that difficult to draw a straight line from the bribe list to the voting pattern. The really baffling part is that it’s not reported on to any substantial degree. Hence, I see a pretty big opening. Want to make these DeeCee assholes tapdance? Bore in on them about their corporate benefactors.

Just noticed the book salon for Saturday.

FDL, Bill Moyers, AND Glenn Greenwald. Together.

Maybe the world really is going to end on the 21st.

Frankly I think it is a waste of time. The entire system is corrupt and co-opted and what we need is a new system. Right now we are being ruled by oligarchs and it is a system by the 1% for the 1%. In fact, even if you think you can work within the current system here is what you are up against

75% of seats are safe seats, due to gerrymandering voting borders. This benefits the two party one headed plutocracy. That means in reality only 25% of seats are up for a vote. Apart from the fact that we have a HUGE question on whether voting software is being rigged to fix elections, we have the billions of dollars flowing into campaign coffers buying the legislation they want. While it would be lovely to say ‘let’s get money out of politics” the people in congress who benefit from this, and the revolving door, have no incentive to change it, and hell will freeze over faster than getting money out of current politic set-up. At the heart of this criminal system is a corrupt privet controlled monetary system. Why a sovereign nation that can print its own money debt free, would agree to hand this over to a private cartel and pay interest to print its own currency? It so corrupt and messed up. Then we have this little problem called the SCOTUS. Think about it 9 people elected for life, chosen by the POTUS, get to set the fate of 300 million! What kind of democracy is that?

Just looked it over briefly. This could be interesting. It’s mostly a programmatic interface to what they already display on the site. It’d be nice to get access to data that’s a little more raw like what they’re aggregating to setup their totals.

However, this is a huge leg up compared to having no programmatic access to their data at all.

I don’t know who wants to push this ball forward, but contact me at either nathan DOT aschbacher AT gmail DOT com or call my office at 503-616-4600

Great minds think alike!

I was telling Jane in email that I’m doing that very thing; marrying up Reps and US Census/demographic data for a demonstration project to get work.

I’ll get in touch with you.

I think we have effectively exactly one politically potent institution left –direct democracy–, and I think it’s important to try and use activism hubs like FDL to push on them.

Despite my frequently terse and rankled relationship with this site at times… I still joined.

It sounds like Nathan is up for exploring this with more intellectual firepower than I have in this area.

I’m still willing to help, but it’s clearly better to defer to his greater expertise. Let me know if I can still be of some service.

Ha! :)

I needed a project to test different NoSQL datastore platforms/paradigms and a bunch of regionally fragmented disjointed statistics seemed like a pretty good option.

If you’re in motion graphics, then visualization will be a key component. Nobody cares much about data without it being fun for them to play with. At least that’s what I’ve learned from years in the analytics biz.

Everything is still under development and I’m certain there will be a way for you to be involved. Glad to have your support!

That’s so true.

Demographic changes over time compared to a rigid rep voting pattern would expose an opportunity for challenge.

That’s one way how this could all function together and effectively.

Cool. Keep me in the loop then.

Kelly,

Scorecards are great for actually showing where candidates stand on individual issues. So, thanks for pushing this idea. I would be more than happy to work “behind the scenes” in data gathering and researching individual voting records. If you are the official leader of this project, what is the next step?

Kelly, Great idea about scorecards for 2012 candidates. Would scoring be only among those who are FDL members? We’ve seen mixed results when similar voting for/scoring candidates was open to anyone. Let’s hope this scoring translates into serious endorsements for solid progressive candidates.

Thank you, Jane, for hosting this live event. Jerry Lewis has got nothing on you!

Thank you, Kelly, for jumping into the scorecard project. This is going to rock!

And most of all, thank you to all who have joined our members program, you are the ones that make it all possible.

Go team!

Several weeks ago I wrote to someone at FDL saying that I am willing to send $5/month for an indefinite period. I used to do that but no longer have the address to send the checks. The answer I got was that you can’t accept checks. If that has changed, maybe someone could send me an address and I will send the checks. I guess if you don’t want me to be a member by sending money that way, that is your decision. But I don’t see why you won’t accept the funds.

Voting records, not questionnaires. If Obama taught us anything it’s that one should never vote based on hope and promises.

Well, “officially” is going to be how FDL and the Membership wants it. I’ve just been pushy about the idea, and raised my hand to loosely organize for now.

My email’s at #27, so fire away.

I imagine there will be a webinar session sometime in the future about this and depending on how the Membership and the FDL leadership team want the direction to go, things would get a bit more solid at that time.

After I gave up writing diaries, I ended up building a tool for myself to track conversations on MyFDL using a Node.js/jQuery application to load MyFDL diaries, track the author, track who commented, track total comments, and the timestamps of the whole lot. Never indexed any actual content though, which would have been interesting if I’d wanted to try any find topical trends.

It helped me sort out who was writing the most diaries, the most actively commented diaries, if there were any obvious “cliques” amongst contributors/followers, etc.

Mostly it helped me figure out the most advantageous ways to structure data in MongoDB so that I can get back out of it what I want to. Ended up not mattering, as I went with Riak for the project all this was done for (the datastore part, not the FDL part. FDL was just a random problem-set I latched onto).

How I’ve seen scorecards work is to make and publish criteria to score against; no individual voting on individuals.

The choices for criteria I’m thinking are up to the FDL Leadership team and us members at some point.

The rather nebulous idea I would humbly offer is a prototype, preferably a small one.

Start with some really safe, D+ districts in the House. Tammy Baldwin in WI imho would be a really good example. In terms of learning how to manage all the data, my guess it’s easier to prototype evaluation of House Dems.

In the initial phase of the prototype, narrow it down to a few issues where FDL really has expertise, torture, Civil/GLBT rights, Choice…

A riff on this would be to open it up for other lib/prog blogs that have expertise in other areas to rate strong D+ reps on issues that they know cold.

Another riff would be following that small group of House Dems in heavy D+ districts through their committee work (if it’s relevant) as it relates to issues on which FDL has expertise.

I was aghast/mortified at what Bart Stupak and a very small group of like-minded Reps engineered and accomplished with the Hyde Amendment to injure Choice during the votes Obamacare. We need libs/progs with that same guile and toughness. How do you measure that? I have no clue, but it’s down the road apiece.

Great thread, thanks to all.

So the candidates would be scored based on the criteria? Seems like an excellent way of doing it.

Is there a “good example” of a scorecard which you can reference located on the Web?

Here’s the ACLU scorecard – plugged in for my Reps, but you’ll see how you can find yours

I think it’s pretty much the only way to establish a standard baseline.

Thank you for the example.

Has anyone compiled a list of all the sources of information on voting records? I’ll stop asking questions now and try to attend the future webinar on this issue. ❀

Library of Congress maintains THOMAS

That’s THE official voting record for Congress.

Is this a Kelly Thread? I wish Kelly liked me. I like FDL, but I’m hesitant to be a part of something wherein some so outwardly and continuously disdains me. I sincerely hope it’s not time for me to move on.

Those choices are very important IMO.

I’m recalling a recent Nate Silver post (boy has he turned out to be an All Obamabot ALL the time) where he linked to a supposed numerical “scorecard” of some sorts (sorry no link I can’t find it again, as usual) where the scorecard had Obama “scored” as more liberal than Clinton. LOL!! The guy is to the right of Reagan yet they were somehow able to score him as “liberal!”

So yeah, those criterea are very important. If the Obamabots can up with scoring to make Obama a liberal, then obviously the criteria you use allows one to come up with whatever conclusion one is hoping for.

Still laughing out loud over Obama a liberal. Maybe their criterea was based on what se SAYS and not on what he DOES. AFter all, he did sound like a liberal in the campaign. And won BIG TIME, proving a liberal can not only compete for the Presidency, but can win it.

I misspoke above. That scorecard had Obama more liberal than FDR!!!

Laughably out of touch with reality.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/how-liberal-is-president-obama/?ref=natesilver

And the concerning thing about this, because it supposedely involves numbers a lot of folks ordinarily not inclined to fall for this type of bullshit will claim this as “evidence” that Obama is a liberal, or whatever other type of evidence they’re trying to create.

I hope FDL takes great care in the criteria for their scorecard so that it doesn’t turn into us merely trying to make candidates fit into our pre-determined set of beliefs.

I know that’s going to be hard though.

how about a $corecard on what bill$ co$t each of us?

I kind of ballparked that Seattle parks cost me about $0.25 cents an hour, or about 16 hours of pay a year – (actually I don’t remember the exact numbers)

how much does that f’king war in banastan cost me per hour, or, how many hours of pay does it cost?

my few days of work means ALL of Seattle has parks for everyone – frankly, anyone who doesn’t want to chip in can move the fuck out for all I care.

what do things co$t? lilly ledbetter is going to co$t all of us a few pennies an hour so the world is fairer, and AHIP-care is going to cost all of us … dollars per hour. guess what – uckfay ouyay on ahip-care.

rmm.

Whether people want to admit it or not, the scorecard means actively engaging with the system and its current crop of politicians, and giving them legitimacy. Frankly, none of the members of the Uniparty can have a score above zero, just because of the fact that they continue to “play the game”. The system is utterly corrupt. Scorecards will not change that. The system itself has to go. Hence, new parties at the very least are what is needed.

FDL has been evolving away from giving credence to the Uniparty. This seems like a honey trap that will lead the sheep back into the fold. As such it is dangerous. I don’t think I’ve misunderstood it either. I don’t support this. It is a distraction from the real issues.

How much are you contributing to FDL each month?

Demi,

I like you, so as a founding member, you are welcome to voice your opinion on any thread you want.*g*

Thank you, J. Means alot.

Demi,

what JClausen said at #67 times 2.

Well the criteria haven’t been decided upon yet. Much less the standards by which any sort of “passing” or “endorsement” is concerned. (All the more reason to become a member – join and help make those decisions!)

For example, I can see the FDL Membership setting a very high bar for endorsement – say in the range of “must meet scorecard at the threshold of 90-95%.” And then out of the 535 congress critters only a handful, 5, 6, 8, meet that threshold.

I imagine many critters would get zero%.

Plus with limited resources, who do we target, both for primary challengers or outright opposition out of the 535? Can’t do all of them. A top-to-bottom ranking really helps put that in focus.

Would it be possible to include links to video/audio of lies the various candidates tell? It seems they say they support certain things and then vote completely opposite of that. And, when called on it, pretend they did no such thing. Could we point out when they talk the talk, but then don’t walk the walk?

I think a scorecard is a great idea, and I’m willing to help. I don’t have any particular expertise that I can think of, but I sure am willing to try!

That’s a great idea!

At a certain heroes/villains level I think it could be included, but depending on resources available etc. I think it’s hard to do for all 535 congresscritters.

Oh, and my email is in #27. Email me – still need more people!

Thanks, Kelly.

Maybe it could be used for cases where we want to particularly oppose someone, like in a close race or for an important seat. Maybe it could be something separate, a sort of Liar’s List, covering just a few topics, i.e., torture, health care, economy, war. Maybe it could just be a way to highlight some particularly big disconnects between voiced opinion and actual votes. [I thought about this the other day when the webinar was first announced with Obama specifically in mind. I'll try to give it some more thought.]

Unfortunately there is no way possible for a politician to fear anyone that they know, no matter what, will vote for them.

You are SO right! We’ve got to be willing to kick the bad ones to the curb. I’m saddled with John “nothing wrong with continuing those Bush tax cuts” Barrow as my Congresscritter. I’ve informed him that I would not ever vote for him again if he voted to extend those tax cuts and got Form Letter #6 informing me that they were good for “the little people.” In 2010 I wrote in Regina Thomas who’s primaried him twice, and I’ll keep on doing that until he’s gone. If I voted for his Republican opponent there would be absolutely no difference. DON’T VOTE FOR BLUE DOGS!

As far as rating candidates, I think it would be extremely helpful to have FDL members in their districts write ratings, in addition to whatever else is planned. We live in a very peripatetic society, and often folks are eligible to vote in a new district and don’t know anything about the candidates.

Well, okay, with only 5 or 6 getting any endorsement, that is essentially rejecting the Uniparty. But then what? There is surely no point primarying them all, or indeed just some of them. Isn’t it better to declare the Uniparty dead and start your own party to replace it, free of any and every apparatchik of the ancien régime?

btw. I am a member already.

You forgot to add that lovely bit about how your contempt for him will never end. (Paraphrasing here.) I miss that! (I’d much RATHER be missing him, however…)

One of the projects I started working on in my state was sussing out state and federal district demographics and comparing them to their existing representatives. Essentially trying to create a barometer for how far away in socioeconomic status the people are from their government.

HOLY COW!!! That sounds to me like possibly the most valuable (to us) and destructive (to them) tools I’ve heard of in forever. I’m bordering on Luddite and have no idea how it could be done, but I’m certainly imagining the TV ads that could be created… And it’s not necessarily just socioeconomic status. It’s also issues like whether or not my lady parts are under my control or not, and whether we all think it’s a grand idea to tote guns on college campuses, and the like. Cripes. I hope I live long enough to see your project come to fruition!

btw. I am a member already.

Great!

Well, think about it. If you want to run 3rd party folks, how do you explain it to the electorate? Isn’t a baseline required to show what/who you want to leave compared to where you want to go?

Seriously, you have to give 3rd party folks a platform to jump from and unequivocally run against as regards progressive values, and just show me who has done that.

I’ve seen good single issue scorecards, but not a multi-issue scorecard graded against more than one value set (see ACLU). Differentiation is a big deal for voters.

Make that x3 or more…

Thank ALL of you in that 1X, 2X, 3X, mix, cause I wanted to say the same thing but felt it would mean so little coming from me it wasn’t worth it, but now that ALL of you folks said the same thing, I can add my little two cents too.

Sure hope Demi sticks around, she’s really a wonderful person. One of many here, IMO.

Oh man, Kelly (oh so wisely) drafted you for scorecards? I was gonna draft you for campaign finance reform! I’ve been working on your suggestion, and swapping emails with someone to come present on it.

We’ll talk.

;)

Yes, the baseline is excellent. If that is how the scorecards are used, so much the better. Indeed, if after scoring, there are a grand total of 5 or 6 congresspigs vaguely deserving of a vote, it becomes fairly self-evident that the system has to be changed which would mean a new party (or even an Arab spring…and I am not being entirely frivolous when I say that).

Frankly I think it is a waste of time. The entire system is corrupt and co-opted and what we need is a new system. Right now we are being ruled by oligarchs and it is a system by the 1% for the 1%. In fact, even if you think you can work within the current system here is what you are up against

I couldn’t agree more. I also think this doesn’t really reflect sentiment in the comments here very well. Maybe among members – that’s harder to gauge – but not the comments. I hope we’ll see some other ideas moving forward that better reflect the sentiment in the comments that wants to ignore that legacy parties altogether.

The idea I presented to the members was No Confidence Protest Vote 2012. I’m really hoping this will get some serious consideration.

Well, think about it. If you want to run 3rd party folks, how do you explain it to the electorate? Isn’t a baseline required to show what/who you want to leave compared to where you want to go?

Seriously, you have to give 3rd party folks a platform to jump from and unequivocally run against as regards progressive values, and just show me who has done that.

Kelly, you have just explained the single reason this effort might be worthwhile. If you think it will help get folks to abandon the Dems then it will definitely be worth it. Any scorecard simply aimed at helping voters choose who to vote for that takes the legacy party candidates seriously is just giving them undeserved legitimacy as another commenter pointed out.

Did you take a look at my No Confidence Protest Vote 2012 idea? Maybe your scorecard could help convince folks to move in that direction by clearly illustrating how irredeemably corrupted the Democrats (and Republicans) are.

One thing; everyone is operating in the dark about what any FDL community consensus IS.

Is there one that can be agreed to, or at least hammered out, that ranks the actual lawmakers, versus some shadow system that doesn’t exist yet?

Would it surprise you to learn that one of the terms that’s getting kicked around, and favorably is “Weasel Weighting”?

I seriously encourage you to be on the lookout for the next piece of the Scorecard deliveries; where Members are going to be called upon to develop the criteria to rank these people.

It couldn’t be clearer that people want a voice. I am sure you will be interested in participating in that phase, and you should.

One thing; everyone is operating in the dark about what any FDL community consensus IS.

This is mostly true. We don’t even have simple tools like the ability to put a poll in our diaries like they do over at DK. All we have is the comments. You’re right that this is pretty dark, but it’s not totally pitch black. I welcome any changes to make community sentiment more transparent, especially if they are somehow available to members to initiate so we can pose questions directly to each other for consensus without staff starting the process…

Would it surprise you to learn that one of the terms that’s getting kicked around, and favorably is “Weasel Weighting”?

Depends on the details of what is meant by it. Anyone who voted for HCR, the bailouts, any of the wars (and on and on) should automatically meet the criteria in my IMHO. It would surprise me if the definition of weasel was this broad.

I seriously encourage you to be on the lookout for the next piece of the Scorecard deliveries; where Members are going to be called upon to develop the criteria to rank these people.

It couldn’t be clearer that people want a voice. I am sure you will be interested in participating in that phase, and you should.

I will definitely get involved in this, at least at first. If it’s going in a direction that seems to lend legitimacy to anybody affiliated with either legacy party I will probably drop out of the process…

Consider these facts:

A community established baseline for measurement doesn’t necessarily confer some legitimacy or endorsement. This is about measurement first and foremost, and the standards are yet-to-be-established. So participate in that process to make the threshold and standard become as high as possible as you can.

Simultaneously, isn’t there some sort of measurable baseline with which you want to measure your 3rd party candidates against? And how would you establish it?

The best answer is by YOU establishing it! See?

So participate in that process to make the threshold and standard become as high as possible as you can.

I absolutely will. I can think of a variety of things that can be done and will contribute those ideas.

Simultaneously, isn’t there some sort of measurable baseline with which you want to measure your 3rd party candidates against? And how would you establish it?

The best answer is by YOU establishing it! See?

You do raise a good point here. I will orient my thinking mostly in that direction – how can we set a standard for something like No Confidence Protest Vote 2012 that would filter out attempts by the oligarchs to overtake an effort like that. If we can define a standard like that it will automatically filter out all the Dems (save maybe a couple, though I doubt event that would remain).