Jeff Klein, Republican in sheeps clothing.
As we've seen, New York "Democrat" state Sen. Jeff Klein has no problem
running on the GOP line in his elections, a practice allowed under his state's "fusion" voting system. Part of the reason is that he's actually pretty much a Republican, not just on the issues, but going so far as to keep the GOP in power when voters elected a Democratic majority to the state senate.
But just how Republican does he really vote? Here is a chart by xenocrypt of how often state senators vote with the Republican Senate majority leader Dean Skelos (full-sized interactive chart here). That is Skelos on the upper-left-hand corner. The further right a legislator is located, the less often she or he votes with the Republican leader.
See all that red to the right of the "Jeff Klein" arrow? Those are all Republicans that are
less loyal to the GOP leadership than him. In fact, there are literally just
two Republicans more in tune with the GOP leader. Or if you prefer numbers, Klein votes with the GOP leadership
97.36 percent of the time.
Want more evidence? EPL/Environmental Advocates, an environmental group in New York, has scored state legislators on their votes. Look at the chart to the right -- wouldn't you know it, while the actual Democrats were pretty solid on environmental issues, Jeff Klein was in the same pit of suck as the top Republicans in the state senate and assembly.
This is a heavily Democratic district. That is why Jeff Klein won't proudly wear his true colors and run as a full-fledged Republican. Thus, he ends up pretending to be something that he is not.
Lucky for us, there's something we can do about this. Give $3 to real Democrat primary challenger Ollie Koppell.
Because yes, it's making a difference:
The website, which championed Mr. Koppell’s candidacy during the months before he officially declared, showed 2,289 people giving him $38,673 as of Wednesday around 1 p.m. — just over a week after Mr. Koppell kicked off his campaign.
“That’s absolutely incredible,” Mr. Koppell said in a phone interview. “I think I have more [contributors] now in this campaign in one week than I’ve gotten in my whole career.”