The
National Journal has determined that Sen. Obama was the most liberal senator in 2007.
"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."
Mmmkay. Well, I would hardly call Obama's campaign "insurgent." Why is that word being thrown around so much by the pundits in this election? Has Obama - or any other candidate - done anything to meet the definition of the word insurgent?
in·sur·gent 
/ɪnˈsɜrdʒənt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[in-sur-juhnt] noun | 1. | a person who rises in forcible opposition to lawful authority, esp. a person who engages in armed resistance to a government or to the execution of its laws; rebel. |
| 2. | a member of a section of a political party that revolts against the methods or policies of the party. |
–adjective | 3. | of or characteristic of an insurgent or insurgents. |
| 4. | surging or rushing in: The insurgent waves battered the shore. |
Maybe Ron Paul, but he's insane. Back to my original topic. Check out the
actual vote stats. Clinton and Obama only differed on two of the 99 key votes analyzed. On the two votes where they differed, Clinton voted with conservatives. Obama was absent for twice as many votes as Clinton, perhaps because he did not want to go on record as either liberal or conservative in preparation for his presidential run. Interesting.
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17 Rants:
WTF?
And please consider the feelings of the truly insane by saying Ron Paul walks among them. They may go batshit and want to hurt you sister. That's all I am saying!
I can't keep the mags straight. Is National Journal left or right? I'm just wondering if liberal is being used in the negative or positive sense by its editorial staff.
Not that it makes one teeny bit of diff considering that both Obama and Hillary's votes seem to be planted squarely between not present and one tic right of center.
I can't help but laugh when I see the comments regarding the fact that we now have five Repubs vying for both the Dem and Repub nomination.
I won't go that far, but I still find it amusing in a perverse way.
Fran, you are right and I sincerely apologize to the clinically insane for any implication that they resemble Ron Paul. And now I accept my apology.
Dcup, National Journal is an "inside Washington" type of mag. It's theoretically non-partisan and I've usually found that to be true. I used to get it for free when I worked in politics. But it's a decidedly myopic mag as well. I always thought it was pretentious and out-of-touch. Most of the coverage is about crap that's only important to self-important congressional staffers and campaign managers. Shit, I'm so glad that I got out of insider politics. They're all such a bunch of fucksticks. I think the "insider expert" coverage of this election has proven that the don't know shit about the American electorate.
While I know that Clinton has been more centrist than many of us would like (and Obama's positions are indeed very similar in many ways) I would never say either of them are anywhere near as far right as any of the Republicans that are running for president right now. Let's keep this in perspective - either HRC or Obama would be a vast improvement over McCain, Romney or Huckabee, to say nothing of the moron who we have in the White House presently.
(That is in response to those that DCup cites as saying there are 5 Republicans running).
Mauigirl, you are so right. I was glad to see Obama and Clinton focusing on trashing the Republicans and the Bush administration, with more discussion of Iraq, than trashing each other. I don't buy that fake lovefest they put on, but at least they tried to focus on taking down their Republican opponents rather than on taking down one another!
Good catch. The National Journal is normally pretty non-partisan and pretty good, so maybe this was just a gaffe. "Insurgent" is used by conservatives quite often to refer to Dems, and yup, by some in the MSM, too.
You didn't buy the love? As for most liberal, did Bernie Sanders suddenly die? Liberal or conservative, left or right, this past congress didn't exactly shine like Sirius.
more liberal than Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer....
lies, lies, and more lies. Obama and Clinton are DINOs IMO. I will support either one because there is no other choice available. We sure don't need more Republicans running the White House. Haven't the American people suffered enough?
Liberality said...
David Broder and many of the other beltway types seem to think we can't possibly survive a Democrat in office. They're goddam insane.
The TAILWIND studies are much more accurate. http://tailrank.com/4928104/Liberal-Senators
The methodology is more robust and less subjective.
You'll see their rankings conform more to our perceptions based upon the votes we've noticed. I think it's no coincidence that Obama got the NATIONAL JOURNAL's #1 ranking in 2007 and Kerry got it for '03.
That would tend to answer the question: "liberal" is a BAD thing in the Beltway mentality.
Neither Clinton nor Obama are liberal. Both are centrists. Clinton is not pretending to be anything else. Obama is all things to all people. The most bizarre media/scholar conflict appears to be with McCain who on Tailwind has been among the top 5 most right-wing senators for the last few sessions.
So, now I'm pretty convinced that there's a strong right-wing bias to the MSM. Not that I needed much convincing.
I'd love to know what scares Broder exactly. Either Clinton or Obama's fiscal policies will be far saner than those of any of the Republicans. No matter who's in office, the chance of some significant terrorist attack in the USA is pretty remote -- Probably about 50/1 against during the 4 years of the next president's administration. Broder may be a less of a longshot to die of natural causes during that time, but I don't know his actuarial details.
For the sake of clarity, I would not consider the arrest and indictment of a bunch of Surinamese guys who sell old paperbacks, incense and crack pipes on the street in NYC to be a significant terrorist event.
I believe that the "MSNBC Political Director" Chuck Todd came out of that whole National Journal, HOTLINE, CQ scene.
One day when we have a meetup and I swear you to secrecy, I will tell you a story about my association - tenuous - but an association nonetheless, with that publishing entity.
PS- Apology accepted!!! LOL!
As Kelso said, this sort of report came out about Kerry in '03. What gets forgotten is that these guys are campaigning and tend to miss a lot of the votes that would balance them more to the center. They return for important votes that will appeal to the base and that skews them leftward for the year.
Randal: It doesn't even shine like yellow snow on a sunny day.
DCNY: Indeed!
Liberality: I think that the American people will have suffered enough when they get up the guts to throw the muthas out! ;)
Batocchio: Yeah, they must be insane. How could a Democrat possibly screw this country any more than BushCo already has? Talk about destructive policies!
Kelso: Thanks for that info - very interesting. National Journal really is nonpartisan, but it's also not the most in-depth Washington analysis. Like I said, it's an insider rag. I agree with you that their criteria were not robust - the ranking is based on key votes only!
Fran: Someday I will get the WHOLE story from you! ;)
Jess: Welcome to RiotLand and thanks for commenting! Yes, you are quite correct. And it's not just Obama who does that - I just noticed that he missed twice as many votes as Clinton.
randal: You have a valid point. Sanders is to the left of Obama.
My general comment is that it really isn't that tough to be one of the most liberal Senators, considering how centrist to conservative most Democrats in office are these days.
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