Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007

By Brian Friel, Richard E. Cohen and Kirk Victor, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.



http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings

Hillary is to the right of Obama and America every single year.

Go Pollybama, Go!

:shrug:

liberal agenda when elected? So much for the Obama is a Republican BS. He is doing precisely what he should do to win. He obviously will serve us libs well when/if he gets in the WH.

Ultimately it comes down to what he'll do once in office.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4314230

for us because the rethugs will never see him coming.

Lakoff, master of framing the message and author of "Don't Think of an Elephant," also agrees that Obama is the more progressive candidate. Check out Lakoff's insightful commentary here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4311967&mesg_id=4311967

That's a great piece on Obama and I don't usually like Lakoff.

First, triangulation: moving to the right -- adopting right-wing positions -- to get more votes. Bill Clinton did it and Hillary believes in it. It is what she means by "bipartisanship." Obama means the opposite by "bipartisanship." To Obama, it is a recognition that central progressive moral principles are fundamental American principles. For him, bipartisanship means finding people who call themselves "conservatives" or "independents," but who share those central American values with progressives. Obama thus doesn't have to surrender or dilute his principles for the sake of "bipartisanship."

The Senate, in my view, is more right wing than most of America.

Seems so

but of the two candidates left standing, there does appear to be a significant gap in their liberal stances. Sure, I wish Obama had been more liberal on a couple of votes. But for Hilary to rank 34th out of 100, given that most of the rest were Republicans, is unacceptable in my book.

you don't vote on anything. I checked out the voting records for Obama and Clinton and Obama has more no votes than you can shake a stick at.

...the Repukes won't make this pretty.

... or "the most organic product" now. Especially when Bush's agency federal guidelines have been loosened so much as to what defines "organic" now.

A buzzword means nothing unless one understands how it's objectively being measured underneath. Otherwise it is meaningless hyperbole.