Talk:Ben Nelson

Factually Accurate? NPOV?

Describing Senator Nelson as only one of two pro-life Democrat in the Senate (along with Harry Reid)) is not factually accurate. Both of North Dakota's senators have ratings from the National Right to Life Committee that are as high as or higher than Senator Reid. Senator Kent Conrad has a rating of 55% and Senator Byron Dorgan has a rating of 64%. This phrase needs to be changed, or should be removed.

Also, the phrase “...whose voting record reflects a lack of support for a woman's right to choose...” seems to be not meeting NPOV and is unnecessarily long. Perhaps it should read, “...whose voting record is pro-life.” This would seem to be more on neutral ground.

Removed the claim that Nelson "opposes most gun control laws". This is simply untrue -- he has had a consistent 'F' rating from the Gun Owners of America throughout his entire tenure. -- User:Spock 29 March, 2006 1222 (UCT)

I suggest deleting the speculative statement "all of which are conservative-leaning groups that would, in all likelihood, support Republicans elsewhere but for Nelson's conservative record" unless someone can rephrase it so that it is something like "all of which support Republicans most of the time" with proper citation. Alienmercy 11:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

His popularity rating

To call him the "most popular senator in the country" based on his popularity among his own constituents is somewhat misleading. Perhaps a different phrasing to the effect is in order, since he would likely not be the most popular senator in the country if a poll were conducted of all Americans. 70.174.143.168 (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)jonesgp1996

Also, is it really accurate to be using a poll that is potentially almost 4 years old? And i also disagree with the use of "Survey USA", wiki should use more reliable surveys/polls like Gallup, CBS News, Rasmussen, or Quinnipiac. Often times smaller survey groups dont have large groups that offer a diverse enough opinion. I would also have to think that his approval numbers have dropped drastically after accepting a sweetheart deal this week. 136.160.191.18 (talk) 15:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Political positions and votes

Rather than beginning this section with a series of subsections, each covering a particular issue, we should open with a general introductory paragraph on his position on the liberal-conservative-otherwise chart. That would be a good place to put things like his ACU and ADA ratings. Some of the information currently in the "Other votes" subsection could go up there.

I reverted an edit in the lede that changed "conservative Democrat" to "moderate Democrat": the Conservative Democrat article defines the creature as one who's conservative relative to the party, not conservative in terms of U.S. politics as a whole.

--Ammodramus (talk) 00:40, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. That's a good point, but unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't appear to be consistent on this point. A bit of research shows that Democrats with moderate (or even leftist) ACU/ADA scores are frequently referred to as "conservative," while Republicans with similar scores seem to be invariably referred to as "moderate." For example:

Nelson - "conservative" per Wikipedia - 47.26 career from ACU, 52.8 from ADA (as of 2005)

Mary Landrieu - "conservative" (though in context used relative to Dem party) - 23.2 ACU, 81.3 ADA as of 2005

Jason Altmire - "conservative" per Wikipedia - 26 ACU, 80 ADA for 2008

John Spratt - "moderate to conservative" - 23.96 ACU, 85 ADA for 2008

Olympia Snowe - "moderate" per Wikipedia - 47.88 ACU, 44.8 ADA as of 2005

Susan Collins - "moderate" per Wikipedia - 49.55 ACU, 39.4 ADA as of 2005

Lincoln Chaffee - "moderate" per Wikipedia - 37 ACU, 59.6 ADA as of 2005

While this may possibly be reflective of media reporting, it's inaccurate, inconsistent, and certainly smacks of POV. And that's without getting into entries that exclusively use quotes calling (like Evan Bayh's) and/or give positions listing (like Kent Conrad's) the person in question as "moderate" and/or "conservative" when the objective measures show otherwise. Consistency would dictate that if Nelson is a called a conservative because of his position relative to the bulk of his party, someone like Snowe should be spoken of as a liberal; likewise, if Altmire is a "conservative," John McCain (81.43 ACU, 15.6 ADA - trending leftward for the past decade) should be referred to as a "liberal" to be consistent.

This looks like a bigger problem than just the Nelson entry. Pending discussion of the broader point, I've removed the offending passage from the overview, since Nelson's relative conservatism is already described in the "Political positions and votes"/"Other votes" area. I'm not sure how to bring the wider discussion before the entire Wikipedia community from here, though.

(BTW, the lifetime ratings for ADA I found were only through 2005; looks like they no longer provide them since, and I couldn't find them for any Representatives.) Jdb1972 (talk) 00:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you've got a point. While I don't generally give a sympathetic ear to conservative complaints about the "liberal media", it seems to be a fact that left-of-the-party R's tend to be described as "moderate"; right-of-the-party D's tend to be described as "conservative".

Nelson's position should be described in the lede, since it's one of his more noteworthy aspects. Perhaps we should state explicitly that Nelson's positions tend to be to the right of his party, citing ADA and ACU ratings; or we could cite his incidence of voting against the party's majority (available through the Washington Post:[1]. In the latter case, we should be sure to note the means and extremes for each party: in the 110th Congress, for example, Nelson disagreed with his party's majority more than any other Democrat, only voting with the party majority 81.2% of the time. Or we could use the National Journal ratings, which can be found at Project Vote Smart.

The lede should not include such unremarkable facts as Nelson's being a Methodist; and I don't think that his popularity in his own state really belongs there, either.

Try Project Vote Smart ([2]) for more recent ADA ratings, and for Representatives. At the main page, there's a bar on the left with a heading "Basic Categories". Click on "Interest Group Ratings". Pick the state, then follow your nose through a couple of other pages until you hit a page where you can click on the name of the congressman you're interested in. You can then scroll down the page; or you can pick a category off the drop-down menu below "Pick an issue". ADA ratings are under "Liberal" in that menu. National Journal ratings are under both "Conservative" and "Liberal". The NJ ratings also seem useful because they classify liberal/conservative on three issue classes: social, economic, and foreign policy.

I also think you've got a good point about WP articles generally. I've outlined a scheme for describing congressmen's positions at Talk:Bill Nelson, which article I'm currently working on; and I think it'd be an excellent thing if editors of WP articles on congressmen came to a consensus on something like that. Not only would consistency be a good thing generally; but having an agreed-upon skeleton for articles on politicians' positions would provide a pretext for deleting stuff by people who sign on only so that they can insert a misspelt sentence or two about their particular pet issues. Like you, I'm not sure how to bring it to the attention of WP editors generally.

--Ammodramus (talk) 02:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)