euro60
16 Feb 2008, 02:50 PM
I don't think this has been posted before (and if it has I'm sorry), but the National Journal recently issued its annual "most to least" liberal ratings for Congress, and it determined that in 2007 Obama was the most liberal Senator of all (ranked 1 our of 100), yes even more liberal than John Edwards or Ted Kennedy. Hillary was ranked 16th. Obama's ranking seems in clear contrast to how he protrays himself during the primaries, or at least that is how I preceive it.... The whole article is too long to be posted so here's a link to it (http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/) but I'm posting a couple of excerpts below:
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.
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.
But differences define campaigns. The yeas and nays matter. And in a Senate in which party-line votes are the rule, the rare exceptions help to show how two senators who seemed like ideological twins in 2007 were not actually identical. Obama and Clinton were more like fraternal policy twins, NJ's vote ratings show.
As the battles for the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations have raged, the candidates have blasted each other for taking positions that are out of line with party dogma. Obama has repeatedly challenged Clinton's 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war, labeling her foreign policy "Bush/Cheney-lite"; Clinton has pointed to Obama's "present" votes on the abortion issue in the Illinois Legislature to raise questions about his support for abortion rights. Meanwhile, Republicans have battled over the strength of their conservative credentials on taxes, immigration, and national security.
When the campaign shifts into the general election, however, the two nominees may each seek to cast their opponent as a party extremist. During the 2004 presidential campaign, for instance, Republicans attacked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as an extreme liberal, including by pointing to his ranking as the most liberal senator in NJ's 2003 vote ratings.
Such lines of attack are already apparent in this year's race. At a January 16 Republican National Committee meeting, Karl Rove, President Bush's former campaign architect, called Obama "a straight-down-the-line United States Senate national Democrat." Rove pointedly added: "Nonpartisan ratings say that he has a more liberal and a more straight-party voting record than Senator Clinton does. Pretty hard to do." How the eventual nominee handles criticisms of his or her voting record could help determine the next president of the United States.
Contacted on January 30 to respond to Obama's scores in NJ's vote ratings, his campaign said that the liberal ranking belies the public support he has been receiving. "As Senator Obama travels across the country, and as we've seen in the early contests, he's the one candidate who's shown the ability to appeal to Republicans and the ability to appeal to independents," said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
But she also said that it's important to note the differences between Obama and Clinton on key issues. "The Democratic Party needs to nominate someone who shows a clear contrast with where Republicans are, on issues like the war in Iraq and the economy and the influence of lobbyists on Washington," Psaki said. "One of the reasons he's received such strong support is because he's drawn the starkest contrast on those issues."
Asked whether the liberal ranking could be used against Obama in the campaign, Psaki said that voters appreciate that he is up front about his positions on issues, even if those positions don't line up with their own. "Part of the reason he's appealing to some Republicans and independents is, he has that authenticity," she said. "He's very clear from the beginning that we can't do this alone and we need to work across party lines and focus more on uniting than on dividing."
Asked about Clinton's relatively moderate placement in NJ's rankings, one of her campaign advisers responded, "Her voting record as a whole shows she takes a comprehensive, balanced approach toward policy. Senator Clinton looks at the broader picture. She tries to see the challenges from not only the blue-collar worker's face, but also the white-collar worker's, not only Wall Street but also Main Street, and from that tries to put together a policy that's best for America as a whole."
The Clinton adviser said that the Democratic candidates' shift to the left reflects the two parties' stark splits over Bush's policies. Asked how the differences between Obama's and Clinton's voting records have played on the campaign trail, the adviser emphasized that the two have not differed over the past year on the critical issue of the Iraq war. "The most interesting thing of this exercise is... it simply looks at the votes," the adviser said. "Did they vote yes? Did they vote no? What did they vote? For the most part, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have identical voting records on Iraq."
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.
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.
But differences define campaigns. The yeas and nays matter. And in a Senate in which party-line votes are the rule, the rare exceptions help to show how two senators who seemed like ideological twins in 2007 were not actually identical. Obama and Clinton were more like fraternal policy twins, NJ's vote ratings show.
As the battles for the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations have raged, the candidates have blasted each other for taking positions that are out of line with party dogma. Obama has repeatedly challenged Clinton's 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war, labeling her foreign policy "Bush/Cheney-lite"; Clinton has pointed to Obama's "present" votes on the abortion issue in the Illinois Legislature to raise questions about his support for abortion rights. Meanwhile, Republicans have battled over the strength of their conservative credentials on taxes, immigration, and national security.
When the campaign shifts into the general election, however, the two nominees may each seek to cast their opponent as a party extremist. During the 2004 presidential campaign, for instance, Republicans attacked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as an extreme liberal, including by pointing to his ranking as the most liberal senator in NJ's 2003 vote ratings.
Such lines of attack are already apparent in this year's race. At a January 16 Republican National Committee meeting, Karl Rove, President Bush's former campaign architect, called Obama "a straight-down-the-line United States Senate national Democrat." Rove pointedly added: "Nonpartisan ratings say that he has a more liberal and a more straight-party voting record than Senator Clinton does. Pretty hard to do." How the eventual nominee handles criticisms of his or her voting record could help determine the next president of the United States.
Contacted on January 30 to respond to Obama's scores in NJ's vote ratings, his campaign said that the liberal ranking belies the public support he has been receiving. "As Senator Obama travels across the country, and as we've seen in the early contests, he's the one candidate who's shown the ability to appeal to Republicans and the ability to appeal to independents," said campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
But she also said that it's important to note the differences between Obama and Clinton on key issues. "The Democratic Party needs to nominate someone who shows a clear contrast with where Republicans are, on issues like the war in Iraq and the economy and the influence of lobbyists on Washington," Psaki said. "One of the reasons he's received such strong support is because he's drawn the starkest contrast on those issues."
Asked whether the liberal ranking could be used against Obama in the campaign, Psaki said that voters appreciate that he is up front about his positions on issues, even if those positions don't line up with their own. "Part of the reason he's appealing to some Republicans and independents is, he has that authenticity," she said. "He's very clear from the beginning that we can't do this alone and we need to work across party lines and focus more on uniting than on dividing."
Asked about Clinton's relatively moderate placement in NJ's rankings, one of her campaign advisers responded, "Her voting record as a whole shows she takes a comprehensive, balanced approach toward policy. Senator Clinton looks at the broader picture. She tries to see the challenges from not only the blue-collar worker's face, but also the white-collar worker's, not only Wall Street but also Main Street, and from that tries to put together a policy that's best for America as a whole."
The Clinton adviser said that the Democratic candidates' shift to the left reflects the two parties' stark splits over Bush's policies. Asked how the differences between Obama's and Clinton's voting records have played on the campaign trail, the adviser emphasized that the two have not differed over the past year on the critical issue of the Iraq war. "The most interesting thing of this exercise is... it simply looks at the votes," the adviser said. "Did they vote yes? Did they vote no? What did they vote? For the most part, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have identical voting records on Iraq."