MEDIA MATTERS: John Edwards meets Republican Math

As Media Matters for America previously noted, although National Journal's 2003 vote ratings of senators placed Edwards fourth, that rating was based on only 40 of Edwards's Senate votes during 2003 and is not representative of his more moderate lifetime Senate voting record. In fact, as National Journal congressional reporter Richard E. Cohen pointed out in a July 9 article, Edwards's average National Journal "liberal score" during his five years in the Senate (1999-2003) is 75.7 percent, "a number that puts him in the moderate wing of his party," and is almost 20 points lower than the 2003 rating that Republicans are touting with the help of the conservative media. National Journal's Cohen also noted that in 1999, Edwards's National Journal "liberal score" placed him as the 31st most liberal senator, in 2000, Edwards ranked 19th, in 2001, he ranked 35th, and in 2002, he ranked as the 40th most liberal among all senators -- 15 to 36 spots lower than "the fourth most liberal senator" label that Republicans and the conservative media are pushing. As Cohen wrote, "From 1999 to 2002, Edwards had ranked among the more conservative Democratic senators. In 2002, only 11 of the 50 Senate Democrats voted more conservatively."

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Picking up on July 12 where substitute host Mike Gallagher left off on July 8, FOX News Channel co-host Sean Hannity ignored the majority of recent polls when he asserted that "there's no Edwards bounce in the polls." While the majority of recent national polls show Kerry-Edwards '04 leading Bush-Cheney '04 (e.g., a NBC poll, a CBS poll, a Rasmussen Reports poll, a Zogby International poll, and a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll), Hannity cited the only major national poll (Associated Press-Ipsos poll) that placed the Bush-Cheney ticket ahead of Kerry-Edwards.

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