Or is it all a ploy?
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.
In their yearlong race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton have had strikingly similar voting records. Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10. "The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter," said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.
He beat out Nancy Pelosi in the race! - unheard of!
The ratings system -- devised in 1981 under the direction of William Schneider, a political analyst and commentator, and a contributing editor to National Journal -- also assigns "composite" scores, an average of the members' issue-based scores. In 2007, Obama's composite liberal score of 95.5 was the highest in the Senate. Rounding out the top five most liberal senators last year were Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., with a composite liberal score of 94.3; Joseph Biden, D-Del., with a 94.2; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with a 93.7; and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., with a 92.8.
Your telling me.
That the 1st and 3rd most liberal people in congress.
Appeal any to the independent voters?
Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters and friend of the blog brings John McCain's Nation Journal conservative ratings to our attention:
John McCain did not make enough votes to get a rating in 2007, spending a great deal of time campaigning for the presidency. His lifetime NJ composite rating is a 71.8 conservative score, not bad but not exactly leading-edge. Chuck Hagel got a 71.5 and Sam Brownback an 81, for comparison. However, the last several years shows a much lower rating than the lifetime score:
2006 - 56.7
2005 - 59.2
2004 - 51.7
John McCain has been in the senate so long that his earlier conservative votes disguise his most recent years where he's barely batted .500 on being a conservative. Again, this is during a period of time where he's supposed to be running for president and thereby trying to capture the base of his party. What's he going to do when he doesn't have to appeal to conservatives anymore
and they claim that John McCain votes with President Bush on everything, argue with those #s
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