Andrew Gelman saw it too and offered some intriguing suggestions. (please read them!) However, he didn't do a makeover himself. I decided to use his ideas and design a very quick sketch to see how an alternative graphic may look like. You can see the mockup below. A few warnings:
1. I used the same similarity scale as Gramener. I asked them for the data.
2. Take the ideological score with a grain of salt. I got it from here but I didn't verify whether it's trustworthy. McCain is on the right position according to his ideological score (X-scale.)
3. Around one quarter of Senators are not shown because of missing data.
4. I have no particular preference. I like either of version for different reasons.
