U.S. Senator John McCain's long and varied career has placed him front and center in a number of battles. He served his country in Vietnam as a member of the U.S. Navy. He survived nearly six years of imprisonment in a Hanoi prisoner of war camp. He's led the fight for campaign finance reform. He's even fought his way through a few bouts with cancer. Where have all of these victories placed him in the eyes of the general public?

Though the word “maverick” is often used to describe him, 44% of American adults classify McCain as a political moderate. Twenty-two percent (22%) consider him conservative and 13% see him as liberal.

Among men under 40, ideological impressions of McCain are evenly divided: 34% of respondents in that demographic rate him conservative and 34% say he’s moderate. Among men over 40, 24% consider McCain conservative and nearly half (48%) see him as moderate.

Looking at the senator’s overall numbers along an ideological continuum, Sen. McCain falls 8 points to the left of the nation’s political center. As a point of comparison, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely 2008 presidential contender, is 55 points to the left of the political center.

The political center is calculated by subtracting the number of liberals from the number of conservatives among the general public (35% conservative, 18% liberal for a net +17). For the Senator McCain, 22% conservative minus 13% liberal equals a net plus 9. The plus 9 reading for Senator McCain is 8 points away from the plus 17 reading for the general public.

While the general public sees McCain as moderate, he earns a lifetime rating of 83 from the American Conservative Union (based on a scale from 0 to 100 with 100 being the most conservative.) Sen. George Allen (R-VA) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), prominent Conservatives also considering a run for the White House in 2008, rate in the 90’s with Allen’s lifetime average at 92 and Brownback’s at 95. At the other extreme, Sen. Clinton scores a 9.

The renowned liberal organization Americans for Democratic Action gives McCain a 5 on its scale of liberalness. Sen. Clinton scores a perfect 100. There’s nothing moderate about those scores.

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