Liberty MavenThe Ron Paul Paul-O-Meter: Cynthia McKinney
July 24th, 2008 8:53 am | by Marc Gallagher | Published in Abortion, Civil Liberties, Constitution, Drugs, Economics, Education, Election, Environment, Federal Reserve, Foreign Policy, Gun Control, Health Care, Immigration, Internet Regulation, Liberty, Maven Commentary, Media, Obama, Politics, Polling, REAL ID, Religion, Ron Paul, Social Security, Socialism, Taxes, War, energy, fisa | 8 Comments
The final Presidential candidate we will be rating on the Paul-O-Meter is the Green Party’s nominee, Cynthia McKinney. For a description of the Paul-O-Meter see this article. We have previously completed ratings for John McCain, Barack Obama, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, and Ralph Nader.
You can get in the action too by rating the candidates using our Paul-O-Meter polling application here.
Listed below is our own ratings for Cynthia McKinney.
- Liberty-based Voting Record - McKinney has voted in a Ron Paul “way” on three issues: foreign policy, the drug war, and free trade. On almost every other issue she borders on complete socialism. Score: 1
- The Federal Reserve and Monetary Policy - McKinney would like to “nationalize” the Federal Reserve and “taking the economic middleman out of coinage and currency”. This is the opposite of the free market ideas Ron Paul espouses. Score: 0
- Foreign Policy and Iraq - McKinney may be more like Ron Paul on this issue than any other candidate. She wants to get our troops out of Iraq, switch to a non-interventionist foreign policy, and remove our troops from bases overseas. Score: 5
- Taxes - McKinney is very much in favor of a progressive tax system. She would institute new taxes across the board. This is the opposite of the Ron Paul approach. Score: 0
- Government Spending - McKinney is for dramatically expanding the role of government with numerous new programs to “take care of us.” Again, this is the opposite of the Ron Paul approach. Score: 0
- Privacy and Civil Liberties - McKinney is pretty close to Ron Paul here but in some cases like same sex marriage she doesn’t support leaving it to the states. She prefers federally recognized marriage. Score: 4
- Immigration - She supports amnesty and voted against the border fence. Score: 1
- Gun Control and Second Amendment - McKinney supports all possible and potential gun control laws. This is the opposite of Ron Paul. Score: 0
- Internet Regulation - McKinney supports Net Neutrality and regulating the Internet. Score: 0
- Adherence To The Constitution - With all of the new federal programs, taxes, and departments McKinney is pretty far from adhering to the Constitution. Score: 0
- Religion vs. Public Policy - McKinney is catholic, but never seems to mention it within her rhetoric. She successfully divorces her religion and policy. Score: 5
- Environment - McKinney is the opposite of Ron Paul here. She supports new government programs to help with global warming and other environment problems. Score: 0
- Energy Policy - McKinney doesn’t support drilling off of our coasts. She has said, “Leave the oil in the soil.” She wants to regulate energy prices. She is against nuclear energy. This is decidedly not like Ron Paul. Score: 0
- U.S. Sovereignty - We could not find any statement from McKinney on the NAU or U.S. Sovereignty. Score: 0
- War On Drugs - McKinney is mostly like Ron Paul here. She wants to end the war on drugs and free non-violent drug offenders, but she doesn’t support just leaving drug enforcement to the states. Score: 4
- Education - McKinney fully supports the Dept. of Education and federally funding education programs unlike Dr. Paul. Score: 0
- Welfare Programs - McKinney advocates for increasing many of the federal welfare programs instead of ending them like Ron Paul. Score: 0
- Abortion - McKinney is pro-choice and is completely the opposite of Ron Paul here. Score: 0
- Health Care - McKinney supports nationalized health care. Score: 0
- Ability To Spread The Liberty Message - McKinney doesn’t have a liberty message like that of Ron Paul and furthermore she doesn’t get much media attention at all. Score: 0
Cynthia McKinney’s final Paul-O-Meter score: 20 out of a possible 99 points.
McKinney finished about where we expected. What we found most interesting is how extreme she is on certain issues, almost like she is Barack Obama’s own liberal conscience. Yet she is very much in line with Ron Paul on foreign policy and free trade, and maybe drug policy, but little else.
That concludes our Presidential candidate ratings. Stay tuned for an upcoming article with our own summation of the results of both our own ratings and of your ratings submitted via the Paul-O-Meter web polling application.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am (#)
Thank you providing these very informative analyses of the major presidential candidates. They should help any honest person who believes in libertarian principles reach a proper conclusion.
However, I recommend that, if any other candidate surmounts the very biased ballot access barriers and is on the ballot in states with enough electoral votes to win the election, theoretically, given the bias of the establishment media, you rate anyone else who may qualify.
Bob Barr for President, http://www.bobbarr2008.com
Vote Libertarian for liberty
David Macko
July 24th, 2008 at 12:22 pm (#)
[...] sit around wondering if Cynthia McKinney is anything like Ron Paul? Liberty Maven’s Ron Paul Paul-O-Meter gives McKinney a paltry 20 out of 99 in “on how closely they are in agreement with [...the [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm (#)
[...] Maven, they created an entertaining and informative chart about all these comparisons. It is the “Ron Paul-O-Meter.” With a very detailed and clever list, they evaluated one candidate at a time in comparison [...]
July 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm (#)
When has she voted in favor of free trade?
July 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pm (#)
Cynthia McKinney is for unilateral free trade?
That surprises me very much.
I would give her 2-3 more points. For one, Ron Paul is against Prohibition, period. He doesn’t want the states regulating drugs, he just recognizes it is their “right” under the Constitution. Unless McKinney is advocating a federal ban on state-level Prohibition, then she should get a full 5 on that issue.
Secondly, although McKinney’s position on currency is indeed the “opposite” of Paul’s, they are more like two sides of the same coin than a different coin altogether — such as the Fed. The “nationalization” plan, though I think it would result in an even worse system than the current one, is still anti-Fed. I don’t think her position is that much different from Chuck Baldwin’s or Aaron Russo’s. I’d give her at least 1, probably 2 on that issue.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:00 pm (#)
G.E. wrote:
> I would give her 2-3 more points. For one,
> Ron Paul is against Prohibition, period. He
> doesn’t want the states regulating drugs, he
> just recognizes it is their “right” under the
> Constitution. Unless McKinney is advocating a
> federal ban on state-level Prohibition, then
> she should get a full 5 on that issue.
Remember, we’re measuring how closely a candidate’s views matches Ron Paul’s views. McKinney was very close to Ron Paul on the issue of drugs, but McKinney’s approach was, in some instances, to use the power of the federal government to “legalize” drugs, and use federal funds to pay for detoxification & rehabilitation programs. Never have we seen her say “the federal government has no say on this issue” or “this is a state issue” or “this issue falls under the purview of the 9th and 10th amendments and should left up to the states”. So we couldn’t give her a 5.
> Secondly, although McKinney’s position on
> currency is indeed the “opposite” of Paul’s,
> they are more like two sides of the same coin
> than a different coin altogether — such as
> the Fed. The “nationalization” plan, though
> I think it would result in an even worse system
> than the current one, is still anti-Fed. I don’t
> think her position is that much different from
> Chuck Baldwin’s or Aaron Russo’s. I’d give her
> at least 1, probably 2 on that issue.
Our thinking on this:
She doesn’t want to abolish the Fed, she wants to nationalize it (opposite of Ron Paul). e.g. More federal power, not less. Not “leave it to the free market” as Ron Paul believes. Also, she makes no mention of supporting the idea of competing currencies. Overall, McKinney’s ideas are most often toward more and more unconstitutional acts to “remedy” a situation (again, the opposite of Ron Paul). We didn’t feel we could give her any points at all here.
We appreciate your thoughts and encourage you to submit your own ratings for McKinney and other candidates at http://libertymaven.com/paul-o-meter/.
Take care,
–Mike Miller
July 27th, 2008 at 3:06 pm (#)
So, what’s the big surprise? Here’s McKinney’s letter of congratulations to Obama, whom she supports simply because he is black! http://www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com/node/375
She has a history of violent and corrupt behavior. She’s apparently so self-important that she felt entitled to bypass security while entering a Congressional office building. Yet after physically assaulting the Capitol Hill police officer “who failed to recognize her” because she had no identification, she sued for discrimination.
http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/jackson/cynthia-mckinney-from-racial-scapegoat-to-political-spoiler
She has had to publicly apologize and pay back the $1000 of taypayer’s money she spent to fly in celebrity Isaac Hayes — just to show how important and well-connected she is.
Even if she hit 100 on the Ron Paul-O-Meter, she’s a publicity-hungry, unstable sociopath who has no business being in any position of decision-making or authority.
Slowly but surely, we’re seeing our third parties disintegrate — first CIA/DEA supporter all-talk-no-action Bob Barr infiltrates the Libertarian Party, and now the embarrassment of Cynthia McKinney chosen to head up the Green Party.
http://www.laweekly.com/news/dissonance/green-party-rip/17889/
July 28th, 2008 at 10:18 am (#)
[...] The methodology is certainly not perfect. I’m not sure perfection is possible due to the subjectivity of the criteria, but it is a fairly comprehensive method. We began ranking the candidates using the methodology with John McCain and Barack Obama. We then focused on the third party and independent candidates, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Ralph Nader, and Cynthia McKinney. [...]