You can go look at their results over at their website listing the candidates sorted which race, what district, and what “grade” they received. Right now, I’m only concentrating on the aggregate result as I think it will bear my hypothesis out – lots of sturm und drang and not a lot “there” there for usable information. For instance:
Who actually filled out their survey?
- Republicans: 170
- Libertarians: 4
- Democrats: 133
Grades given out: 307
- A – 64
- B – 21
- C – 33
- D – 28
- F / F(RS) – 161
Highest ranking: Democrat: C (just one)
Lowest ranking Republicans: D (15 of them)
I would expect Republicans to get the A’s and none of the Democrats (Note”: all four Libertarians got A’s).
However, if I break that F / F(RS) down:
- F – 41
- F(RS) – 120
Not a single R got an F (although, even though I don’t know how they scored the survey questions, getting 15 D’s from Rs doesn’t look good). Which pretty much tells me that these Democrats pretty much are using this as a:
- Stick in the eye of the NHFC (which doesn’t realize it)
- Wearing it as a badge of honor to both their base and Left leaning sympathizers (and the NHFC gave them this platform)
Looking at the F(RS) (e.g., you are an anti-gunner because you won’t play with us), the breakdown was
- 42 Rs didn’t return a survey
- 1 Libertarian didn’t return a survey
- 77 Ds didn’t return a survey
My overall conclusion is:
- Although they put out their overall scoring sheet, they’re not transparent on how the surveys are scored. I look at the list of some of the names with “low” scores and knowing them, I know the scores are absolutely misleading. Let’s hope they’d publish them otherwise they’re just practicing voodoo statistics.
- The large number of “we’re not playing” and “Badge of honor” folks skew the stats – and skew them badly. Their own scoring grade sheet also skews to the “hit candidates over the head with a frying pan” outlook. F’instance: a B grade include the slam of “lacks understanding or solid conviction” – sounds like an updated version of phrenology it me. It also probably means that they are also using a “cross-question” analysis to make such an assumption. Again we don’t know because they’re not completely transparent as to the importance of a question and how the scoring of their predetermined answers are.
Overall impression? A crock. I’ll do another post in a while for some specifics but I do know that there are some folks who were downrated that certainly don’t deserve it.
Caveats: cut/paste mistakes, sometimes ran out of fingers to count on, and the like.
