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Supposedly Not. Start with Krugman, who describes the methodology a bit, then check graphs:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/obama-the-moderate/
http://voteview.com/blog/?p=317
Supposedly he's slightly to the right for Democratic presidents, but still way to the left of the GOP, while the GOP has definitely drifted right. Whether voteview's methodology actually makes sense is another matter: is Obama to the left of Truman, who integrated the military and originally fought for real universal health care? So much to the right of Nixon, who signed in the EPA and many other liberal-friendly bills? Was there that huge a jump from Eisenhower to Nixon, compared to from Nixon to Reagan?
There's also Congressional graphs http://voteview.com/blog/?p=284
showing extreme rightward trend of the House GOP. It also goes back to 1879 -- so why doesn't the Presidential graph?
There's also http://www.voteview.com/dwnomjoint.asp which shows graphs for the second dimension, supposedly civil rights or social issues, which goes Republicans - Northern Democrats - Southern Democrats. Which, WTF. What set of real issues does that ordering capture?
So, interesting ideas, but I'm skeptical of the work.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/obama-the-moderate/
http://voteview.com/blog/?p=317
Supposedly he's slightly to the right for Democratic presidents, but still way to the left of the GOP, while the GOP has definitely drifted right. Whether voteview's methodology actually makes sense is another matter: is Obama to the left of Truman, who integrated the military and originally fought for real universal health care? So much to the right of Nixon, who signed in the EPA and many other liberal-friendly bills? Was there that huge a jump from Eisenhower to Nixon, compared to from Nixon to Reagan?
There's also Congressional graphs http://voteview.com/blog/?p=284
showing extreme rightward trend of the House GOP. It also goes back to 1879 -- so why doesn't the Presidential graph?
There's also http://www.voteview.com/dwnomjoint.asp which shows graphs for the second dimension, supposedly civil rights or social issues, which goes Republicans - Northern Democrats - Southern Democrats. Which, WTF. What set of real issues does that ordering capture?
So, interesting ideas, but I'm skeptical of the work.