OnTheIssues.org's take on the Democratic presidential candidates from left to center

I concluded Democratic presidential candidates from left to center from Voteview with a promise to revisit the topic.

[T]his won't be the last time I plan on examining the ideology of the candidates.  On The Issues has pages and ideological evaluations of just about all the candidates, including ones who never served in Congress.  Compared to Voteview, it's more complete, but less objective and based on rhetoric, not action....Still, ranking the candidates by ideology, and comparing it to their DW-NOMINATE scores, if available, should be both entertaining and informative.

Since the participants in the debates later this month have been selected, it's time to follow through.

As I did for the rankings using Voteview, I'm sharing the methodology.

Candidate's Political Philosophy
The below is a way of thinking about the candidate's political philosophy by dividing the candidate's VoteMatch answers into "social" and "economic" questions.  It is only a theory - please take it with a grain of salt!

Social Questions:  Liberals and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while conservatives and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.

Economic Questions:  Conservatives and libertarians agree in choosing the less-government answers, while liberals and populists agree in choosing the more-restrictive answers.
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Social Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's personal lives or on social issues. These issues include health, morality, love, recreation, prayer and other activities that are not measured in dollars.

• A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in tolerance for different people and lifestyles.
• A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that standards of morality & safety should be enforced by government.

Economic Score

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

• A high score (above 60%) means the candidate believes in personal responsibility for financial matters, and that free-market competition is better for people than central planning by the government.
• A low score (below 40%) means the candidate believes that a good society is best achieved by the government redistributing wealth. The candidate believes that government's purpose is to decide which programs are good for society, and how much should be spent on each program.

This measures how much the candidate believes government should intervene in people's economic lives. Economic issues include retirement funding, budget allocations, and taxes.

How We Score Candidates

How we determine a candidate's stance on each VoteMatch question:

1. We collect up votes, excerpts from speeches, press releases, and so on, which are related to each question. Each of these are shown on the candidate's VoteMatch table.
2. We assign an individual score for each item on the list. The scores can be: Strongly Favor, Favor, Neutral/Mixed, Oppose, Strongly Oppose. The scoring terms refer to the text of the question, not whether the candidate strongly opposed a bill, for example.
3. We then average the individual scores, using the numeric scale: Strongly Favor = 2, Favor = 1, Neutral/Mixed = 0, Oppose = -1, Strongly Oppose = -2.
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• If the average is above 1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Favor.
• If the average is above 0, the overall answer to the question is Favor.
• If the average is exactly 0, the overall answer to the question is Neutral.
• If the average is below 0, the overall answer to the question is Oppose.
• If the average is below -1, the overall answer to the question is Strongly Oppose.
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• To get the political philosophy of the candidate, we sum up the answers on two scales, the Personal/Social scale and the Economic Scale. Some questions aren't used in the political philosophy calculations.
• The VoteMatch table indicates the number of scale points from each answer (any one question can provide from 0 to 10 scale points on one scale or the other).
• The combination of social/moral scales and economic scales produces a political philosophy description.

Enough of On The Issues' methodology.  Mine was to rank the candidates by economic score from low (left) to high (right, or in this case center) to make it comparable to the liberal-moderate (there are no true conservatives running for the Democratic nomination) ranking I used two weeks ago which was based on the economic dimension.  I then used the social score to break ties in the economic score with high scores being considered more liberal and low scores being considered more conservative.

Follow over the jump for the rankings.