Voting record belies Edwards' 'centrist' label

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One of the reasons Sen. John Kerry picked freshman Sen. John Edwards to be his running mate was his potential appeal in the conservative South, a Republican-dominated region that the Democratic ticket must crack if it is to win in November.

The centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council hailed the Massachusetts liberal's choice as a victory for party moderation, but a closer examination of Mr. Edwards' voting record suggests that it is not much different from Mr. Kerry's -- the most liberal in the Senate.

The National Journal, which rates congressional votes on a liberal-to-conservative spectrum, said Mr. Kerry had the most liberal voting record in the Senate, scoring 95.5 out of 100 points. It also turns out, the political journal reports, that Mr. Edwards has a nearly identical voting score -- 94.5.

This is at sharp variance with much if not most of the national news reporting that has portrayed Mr. Edwards as a more centrist-leaning lawmaker who would offset Mr. Kerry's more liberal voting record -- though some newspapers such as the Boston Globe reported otherwise.

"Edwards' brief Senate record reflects a lawmaker whose legislative agenda is similarly liberal to Kerry's and strikingly different from those of other Southern Democrats," the Globe reported last week.

Though the former trial lawyer represents a conservative-leaning state that more often than not goes Republican in presidential elections -- Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to carry North Carolina in 1976 -- he quickly joined his party's liberal voting bloc when he entered the Senate in 1999, voting against tax cuts and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and for increased social-welfare spending, more gun controls and environmental regulations.

Last year, Mr. Edwards was one of only 12 Senate Democrats -- among them Mr. Kerry -- who voted against the $87 billion supplemental funding bill needed to supply U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The National Journal is not the only group to cite Mr. Edwards' left-of-center votes. Liberal groups such as Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) have given him scores that ranged from 90 percent to 95 percent in his early years in the Senate, grades that fell somewhat in the past two years because he missed many votes while campaigning for president.

On the other end of the political spectrum, a bevy of conservative organizations such as the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, the Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee have consistently given him failing scores on spending, taxes, abortion and other social issues.

"Out of a possible 100 percent, Sen. Edwards has a lifetime congressional rating of 13 percent. He consistently looks for ways to spend tax dollars and his failing grade proves it," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

In 2001, for example, Mr. Edwards voted against ending the higher tax rates levied on two-income married couples, opposed cutting taxes on Social Security benefits in 2000, and came out against the repeal of the inheritance tax. These and other provisions were all part of President Bush's across-the-board income-tax rate-reduction plan, which the North Carolina freshman also voted against in 2001.

Nevertheless, the Democratic Leadership Council last week enthusiastically cheered Mr. Edwards' placement on the ticket, saying that he and Mr. Kerry represented the values of a New Democrat philosophy that was seeking to fashion a "centrist majority party."

But Mr. Edwards' conservative Republican colleagues who were intimately familiar with his voting record have a sharply different view of the Democratic ticket's ideological posture.

"This is a left-leaning ticket that is out of step with most American values," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican.