Policy Perspective

Kerry Not So Liberal, Bush Not So Conservative
by Jeffery A. Jenkins

Fall 2004, Volume 26, Number 2

Where does President George W. Bush stand ideologically?

Some liberals contend he is an extremist, more conservative than Ronald Reagan, a proponent of rolling back social and economic reforms of the New Deal and Great Society. At the same time, some conservatives argue that he is an advocate of expanding the federal government, typified by the recent, massive Medicare expansion, and is thus out of step with the laissez-faire brand of economics that underlies traditional conservatism.

In reality, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

The ideological facts behind competing political passions and rhetoric can be quite illusive. Despite all the joined-at-the-hip comparisons of Sen. John Kerry to Edward Kennedy, my analysis showed that Kerry is a moderate relative to his party’s Senate delegation, slightly left of center.

Using a variant of a methodology* developed by Keith Poole of the University of Houston and Howard Rosenthal of Princeton University, I compared Bush’s ideological score to those of both Republican senators and other Republican presidents across time. I also looked at how Kerry’s positions compare with other Democratic presidents and senators. For simplicity, I examined President Bush’s score in the last full Congress, the 107th, relative to Senate Republicans.

As it turns out, President Bush is positioned near the dividing line between the center-right and right quartiles of the party. While clearly right of center, he is not a part of the party’s most conservative segment, anchored at the time by Sens. Phil Gramm and Jesse Helms.

Historically, he is considerably more conservative than Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, somewhat more conservative than Richard Nixon, but less conservative than Ronald Reagan. Compared with his father, George H. W. Bush, he is slightly more conservative.

The elder Bush’s presidency was a study in contrasts. In his first two years in the White House, he operated as a moderate. In his last two years, battered by a stagnant economy and challenged by Patrick Buchanan, his ideological score moved into the extreme-right quartile.

Is President Bush following his father’s lead? That is, with his recent support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as the 2004 election looms, is he moving rightward in the latter half of his term? Not necessarily. Some of his other recent policy positions, such as his support of steel tariffs and immigration liberalization, suggest otherwise. As of now, it appears that President Bush is attempting to maintain his current “middle-of-the-road” brand of conservatism, taking some hard-right stances but also portraying a “compassionate conservatism” side.

Kerry, the liberal?	Bush, the conservative?

Presidents can also be placed on this left-right continuum based on the positions they take on congressional roll-call votes. That is, presidents will often make their preferences known on a given issue, prior to the issue being voted on in Congress. I used these presidential positions to determine how President Bush would have voted, had he been in Congress. The president’s ideological score was then compared to those of his party’s congressional delegation to determine just how conservative—or liberal—he is.

What about John Kerry? How does this left-leaning moderate, based on my early analysis, compare to other recent Democratic presidents?

In fact, only Lyndon Johnson appears more conservative than John Kerry; Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton appear slightly more liberal than Kerry; and John F. Kennedy, to whom Kerry is often compared, appears considerably more liberal.

Should we expect Kerry to behave differently if elected president? As noted earlier, presidents do not operate in a vacuum. Changing external conditions heavily influence their actions.

Take Kennedy and Johnson, who both served in the Senate before becoming president. Both also became more liberal once in the White House. If the Kennedy and Johnson cases are at all indicative, we might expect Kerry to move to the left upon becoming president. Whether such a move would be permanent, or whether he would moderate over time, is unclear. Thus is the uncertainty of political life.

At the end of the day, the American people have a real choice in 2004. Rather than appear as “echoes,” Bush and Kerry represent very different ideological views. While neither carries a distinctly extremist mentality, their views of the government’s role in the economy and society meaningfully diverge.

We will know in November which view carries the day.

Jeffery A. Jenkins is assistant professor of political science and an IPR faculty fellow. A version of this editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 7.