Make them famous

(H/t E)
Another pop quiz:

1) Whose the most liberal senator?

That'd be Sen. Feingold

2) The most conservative?

McCain? Hardly - Hatch? No.

It's Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma, but the really interesting bit is that the most right wing guy in Congress is Ron Paul - by a very wide margin.

How do I know this?

Watchdog.net

Watchdog.net is displaying a ton of data (VoteView's ideology rankings are just one example) and manages to make accessing it in context very easy.

Look at Mississippi's congressional delegation, for example.

If I want to know more about Sen. Cochran's voting history, or earmarks - I click on him and see:


Sen. Cochran's asked for a billion dollars of federal earmarks for his state. Now, the page also shows what actually got approved (a much more telling number) and he's received $705 million dollars worth of earmarks.

Shocking right? Except if I click on the chart following that number, I see Cochran's place in context with everyone else in congress.

He's number 2. Right behind Sen. Hillary Clinton.

I click on her and see she's asked for $1.6 billion worth of earmarks - and received $731 million.

That was too easy, and if that kind of data can keep being easy to find - I suspect we will have better questions for our legislators when they try to sell us their version of reality.

We need more sites like this.

It's a marvelous example of how easily accessible data can cut through the crap.