I realize these types of voter's guides are outdated, but I put it up here anyway for one very important reason: to demonstrate the depths of deception, spin and twisting that those involved with the radical religious right will go to in order to fool the American public into believing that they are all about what is best for American and for the individual.
Pay attention to the subtle and almost subliminal way that this "nonpartisan" voter guide was intended to influence voters to vote Republican. Do not believe that simply because a group claims to be about "America" or hold "Christian values" or be about "traditional family values" that they're going to be honest and forthright. There's not one person or group profiled on this site that hasn't twisted truth to fit their agenda.
Below is a list of the picture numbers and a brief description of what they represent. You don't really need to see the pictures in order to understand the article, but they're there if you want to look at them. Mainly I included them on the site in case anyone doubted the information I was giving them or wanted to verify my numbers.
| KEY TO PICTURE COLOR CODE |
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Partisan or Biased Language |
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Republicans with 75% or better |
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Democrats with 75% or better |
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Republicans with 29% or less |
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Democrats with 29% or less |
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Scores of 100% |
Every advertiser knows the importance of positioning and making your name stand out from among the rest. In the Congressional Scorecard put out by the Christian Coalition (from here on abbreviated CC), names of members of Congress who are members of the REPUBLICAN party are presented in ALL CAPITALS. Kind of makes it stand out and draws your eyes to their names versus that of non-Republicans, just as the first three words you probably saw in this sentence were "REPUBLICAN" and "ALL CAPITALS". You can see this throughout the voter's guide.
What the CC also fails to mention is that not all those members of Congress who are not Republicans are Democrats. It takes no pains to distinguish independents, Libertarians or any other party members. Its guide only mentions that names in "ALL CAPS = REPUBLICANS". Why not "ALL CAPS = DEMOCRATS" since at the time the Democrats where in the majority? It chose the Republican party over all others. Perhaps technically not a political affiliation or endorsement, but it certainly highlights one party over all others. The use of ALL CAPS was meant to draw the eye of the reader to the names of Republicans and then, coupled with the scoring method, lead them to think that the Republicans were "better" than the Democrats. [Picture 2a]
A careful look at the way the information in this scorecard is presented also speaks to the fact that the CC does indeed endorse candidates. Yes, every member of Congress is listed. But the issues voted on are those of importance to the CC and the method of keeping score was whether or not the congressperson voted in favor of the CC position or against it. Additionally, the method of distribution was to have the voter's guides passed out at churches— Christian churches. The entire presentation, without actually stating anything, made a very clear statement: If you are a good, church-going Christian, you will vote for those who agree with the position of the CC.
But let's see how that message was conveyed.
One subtle message is given in the symbols used to keep score: a "+" sign (denoting something positive) if they voted with CC and a "-" sign (denoting something negative) if they did not. Those who voted for the position of the CC received 2 positive signs. Kind of like getting an A++ on one's term paper. The very purpose of a voter guide is to help people find out who to vote for. This is a positive action (in other words, they're not looking to see who NOT to vote for). Given that the CC passed these guides out mostly in Christian churches the Sunday before the election specifically to help those who didn't know who they were going to vote for, the undecided voter is subtly led to pick the candidate that has the most "+" signs because we've all been taught that "positive" is good while "negative" is bad. Since many more Republicans than Democrats voted in line with the CC's position, the Republicans have a lot more "+" reinforcement.
Then, to further entice the voter to cast their ballot for the "correct" candidate, there is a percentage after each name. As we were taught all through school, higher percentages are better, right? More is better and all that kind of stuff. People who get a 0% are themselves "zeroes" or "losers" and we certainly wouldn't want a bunch of losers running our country.
Of all the percentages on the scorecard (this includes House and Senate), there are 177 who score 75% or higher. Of this, only 11 (6.2%) are Democrats. (In the Senate alone this percentage is even lower— only one of the 34 scores above 75% is a Democrat, which is only 2.9%) In the House there are 91 scores of 100% and only one is a Democrat and that Democrat only voted on six of the twelve issues represented. Had he voted on all twelve issues, his score might have been only 50%. In the Senate, there were 18 scores of 100%— all of them from Republicans. In the Senate, the highest Democratic score is 79%— whereas 33 of the 44 Republican senators have scores of 79% or better. That means 75% of the Republicans in the Senate had scores equal to or better than the highest Democrat! Certainly this can be seen as a tacit endorsement of the Republican party.
At the other end of the spectrum, the lowest score for a Republican in either the House or the Senate is 25% (only 2 of the 175 representatives got this score and only one of the 44 senators received a 29%). Compare this to the fact that 42 of the 56 Democrats in the Senate scored 29% or less and in the House, 173 of the 261 Democrats scored 25% or less. That translates to 75% of the Democrats in the Senate scoring lower than or equal to the bottom 2% of the Senate Republicans and 66% of the Democrats in the House scoring lower than or equal to bottom 1% of the House Republicans. All of the 83 scores of 0% where scored by Democrats in both houses.
For those members of Congress who did not announce a position or did not vote, the CC included that "vote" in scoring the percentages. For example, Representative Murtha of Pennsylvania scored a 42%, which indicates he voted with the CC on five of the twelve issues and against the CC on the other seven. Yet according to the CC's own data, Rep. Murtha did not announce a position or did not vote on two issues. Therefore, technically, a score of 50% should have been registered since the CC has no idea what his position is on two of the twelve issues. This only serves to lower the percentages, which for the Democrats means they appear even more "anti-family".
Granted, there is no direct endorsement of any single member of Congress. But the implied intent is all too clear. If one is to be considered a good Christian and a member in good standing with the CC, one must vote for those who support the CC's position on legislation. Overwhelmingly, this means one has to vote Republican. (Only 5% of Republican House members and 7% of Republican Senate members did not support at least half of CC's positions.) And of the twenty-two bills voted upon, only one supported by the Christian Coalition was introduced by a Democrat. If this isn't endorsement of one political party over another, what is? If it's not an attempt to influence the outcome of an election or to advocate the election or defeat of any candidate (see the disclaimer printed above the guide to scorecard symbols), I don't know what more one would have to do to do just that.
According to a letter from the CC in response to a complaint I filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Consumer Affairs, a Mr. Gribbin mentions that they have absolutely no control over what is debated on the House or Senate floor. This may be true but the CC certainly has ultimate control over which issues are selected for the voting guide. He also says they only score the issue on how the members of Congress vote, but that is simply not true. According to the Guide to Scorecard Symbols, the plus or minus sign issued to each candidate is not how they voted on the issue, but whether or not they voted in favor of CC's position or against it! This is not non-partisan scoring. Mr. Gribbin even says that the "number of Republicans scoring higher on our scorecard is a reflection of the fact that more Republicans than Democrats supported the Coalition's stance on the issue." It's easy to read between the lines: support Republicans because they support the issues of importance to the family.
I have seen other voter guides put out by pro-family groups similar to CC, yet these guides have been fair and unbiased. Democrats were grouped together as were Republicans, Libertarians and even independents, so no one group stood out from the others. The issues were listed without political rhetoric (House Vote #12— the CC title for the vote is "Taxpayer-Funded Pornography/Government Waste"— shows the kind of rhetoric I'm talking about: the bill was actually an attempt to slash funding for the National Endowment for the Arts) and a candidates position was simply listed as "S" for supporting or "O" for opposing the actual legislation, not whether or not they supported or opposed some interpretive position of some outside organization. No percentages were given comparing the candidates' positions to that of the group distributing the guide. The clear intent of this voting guide is to get voters to support only those candidates who support the Christian Coalition's position, and in doing so, the CC is advocating the election of specific candidates, contrary to their disclaimer in the brochure and contrary to federal law.
Now let's take a look at the spin the CC puts on these issues and how the very wording pulls the reader towards the CC position. Let's start with the Description of Senate Votes. The first thing to note is that the votes are not listed in chronological order. Which means that someone chose the order that they were listed on this voting guide. And guess what gets put at the top? The vote that attempted to lift a ban on gays in the military. The use of the term "open homosexual" is inflammatory— it fans the fires of fear about gays.
The long and short of it is that gays are and always have been in our military. To say that allowing gays who are out of the closet to serve would be damaging to the moral of a unit makes as much sense as saying that allowing gays poses a security risk because they're more prone to blackmail. The reason gays in the military are more prone to blackmail is because it was illegal for gays to be in the military. The same goes now for the "don't ask/don't tell" policy. In fact, a congressional study has now shown that the DADT policy is costing the military in excess of $200 million a year.
Those opposed to allowing out gays to serve say that unit cohesion would be affected since a male soldier might not want to shower with a gay male soldier if he knew he was gay. But this ignores the fact that at least a homophobe knows who not to shower around! As it stands now, he has to suspect every male in his unit of being gay. Instead of knowing who he should "mistrust" because he's gay, he has to mistrust everyone. Now tell me, how does that help unit cohesion? It's based on the belief that ignorance if bliss. Ask any soldier whose served in wartime just how much that philosophy comes into play in the field.
The second issue that's addressed is banning immigrants "infected with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus". The placement of this after the issue related to gays serves to "remind" people of the false belief that HIV/AIDS is a "gay disease" and that the main group responsible for its devastating effects are gays. Again, this serves to fan the flames of fear and to arouse the anger of the reader at gays. This would translate to arousing anger at anyone who supports gays.
The CC doesn't seem to care that AIDS is not a virus: it is a syndrome— like Downs syndrome. There are certain conditions that must be met in order to be considered as having AIDS. The exact severity of the AIDS, like that of Downs syndrome, will vary. HIV is the virus and it is not deadly— there are many out there who are HIV positive but never develop AIDS. In fact, there are those out there who are immune to it. AIDS on the other hand is (or at least was— the medications they're coming out with now are working wonders by lowering the viral load to undetectable levels) almost always fatal. But these facts apparently aren't important to the spinmeisters at the CC as long as they can scare you into getting angry at gays and those who support them.
The third issue that's addressed is tax incentives for family leave. By using the phrase "government mandate", the CC leaves the reader with the impression that the government is interfering in their family life. No one wants the government to interfere in their personal life and so once again, the implication is that anyone who voted against the attempt to offer tax incentives instead of requiring family leave to be offered is FOR the government interfering in one's private life. There's no discussion about the fiscal impact of the tax incentive versus family leave. And, ironically, allowing family leave would give families a chance to form closer bonds after the birth of a child or give greater support in the event of an illness or death. Yet, true to form, the RRR is more concerned with money— and not money for families either.
What the CC supports is the government giving tax breaks to business in the hope that they'll allow you to take time off if your wife/girlfriend has a baby or your spouse/partner requires surgery or there's some other medical emergency. Now, it's against the law to discriminate against blacks, women, and others with disabilities, but that doesn't stop it from happening all the time. The CC wants us to believe that businesses— which are driven by profit in this country— will do what is "right" for the worker, just like they don't discriminate based on color, gender, etc. anymore.
Votes 4 and 5 are so blatantly biased I'm not sure they need much explanation. The use of the term "so called" in quotes means "this is what they're saying it is but it's really not". And they point out what they feel are bad things and nothing about all the good that the budget plan did. Then they make sure that you blame Al Gore for it because he cast the tie-breaking vote.
Vote 6 is called the "Clinton Social Security Tax Increase" so that everyone would blame President Clinton for the tax increase even though Congress writes the laws and budgets.
Vote 7 contains both inflammatory wording and an outright lie. The inflammatory wording is the use of quotes around "fair housing", which means again "it's not really fair housing but they're saying it is." The lie is that the court cases against the Boy Scouts were seeking to force them to accept gay leaders. The real issue was that the Boy Scouts were claiming to be a private group but were taking government subsidies like a public group. If they were going to take the government subsidies, they had to abide by non-discrimination laws. If they were going to be a private group, they had to give up the government subsidies. The BSA wanted to have it both ways: they wanted to have their cake and eat it too and Roberta Achtenberg was going to make sure they abided by the law of the land— which is her duty as a judge.
The description for vote 8 makes it sound like Jocelyn Elders wanted to pass out condoms to kindergartners. Sex education includes understanding about sexual abuse and sexual abuse of children is probably one of the most overlooked rampant "diseases" in this country today. One in four girls and one is six boys will be the victim of childhood sexual abuse or rape by the time they're 18. I applaud Dr. Elder for wanting to educate kindergartners about protecting themselves and think it should be taught even before that. The use of the term "pro-abortionist" is inflammatory as well. One can be against abortion but still believe in the right of every woman to choose what is right for herself. And taking a quote out of context is always an inflammatory thing to do.
Votes 10 and 11 deal with abortions for low income women and federal employees. The inflammatory description of "tax-payer funded abortion" ignores the very real fact that our taxes go to pay for a LOT of things we disagree with. I personally disagree with the war in Iraq, but my tax dollars are going to support the military. We don't get to pick and choose where we want our tax-dollars to go— our elected representatives decide that and we support them by re-electing them or we show our disdain by electing someone else. That's how the system works (or at least how it's supposed to work.)
The description of vote 12 is again so blatantly biased that it really needs no explanation.
The description of vote 13 contains an outright lie as well. The Supreme Court did NOT rule that voluntary Bible reading or school prayer was illegal. It's not and never has been. What's illegal is for the school to require it, to require attendance at a function where a prayer is part of the program or for school personnel to choose and/or lead the prayer.
The description of the House votes is very similarly done, so I'm not going to go over them all individually. I do, however, want to comment on the note from Pat Robertson on why he started the CC. He says that he "wanted to make sure that Christians and pro-family Americans" had a say in government. First, this in itself is in direct violation of the First Amendment. We are not and never have been a Christian nation and we were never meant to be one. Don't let their argument that the Puritans came over here to establish a religious colony fool you into thinking that maybe we were meant to be a Christian nation. The Puritans did come over here to start a religions colony, but they had no desire to form a new nation. They were content to remain a colony of the Crown of England. By the time the founding fathers wanted to form a new nation, they clearly had no desire to form a Christian nation: if they had, we'd not have the First Amendment guaranteeing us freedom of religion and prohibiting the establishment of a state religion. Christian beliefs have no place in shaping of civil laws and policies of the government.
Second, there are plenty of "pro-family" Americans who do not support the agenda of the radical religious right. Mine being one of them. The subtle implication of this statement though is that if you vote for someone who opposes the CC position, then you are "anti-family" and a bad Christian.
Robertson repeats this association more blatantly in the About the CC section where he says the CC stands up "for the values shared by a majority of Christian and pro-family Americans." Again, the implication is that if you do NOT support the CC and vote for the candidates who do not support the CC, then you are not a good Christian or a pro-family American.
These voter guides are the perfect example of the spin, deception and outright lies the radical religious right uses to win elections. But if we allow this to continue, we're going to lose more than just a seat or two in Congress: we'll lose the very right to hold those elections in the first place.
