The Most Liberal Senators, the Most Conservative Senators, and Where Obama Fits

I like VoteView for rating congresspeople. The reasons why are in this article . VoteView has ranked the 111th Senate. They also have placed Obama among them. They do that by taking stated White House positions. The people running the site know what they are doing.

Now a couple of the top progressive/liberal senators are people you might not have heard of: Goodwin of WV? Kirk of MA? The key to that is in the third column from the right in the linked file: They were Senators very briefly. Goodwin only since July 2010 (he replaced Robert Byrd). Kirk replaced Kennedy briefly. But, of the others at the top, I think it's a pretty good list of progressives:

Franken; Feingold; Sanders; Whitehouse. Those are the top 4. I think we could agree that these are a pretty liberal group. We could quibble over the order but it's good. At the bottom end Barrasso, Kyl, Demint, Coburn. And, again, I think we could agree that those four are pretty darn right wing. Coburn is ranked 107 (There are more than 100 because of rplacements and because Obama is included.

And where is Obama? 22nd. Just behind Leahy. Just ahead of Mikulski. At the edge of the top third of the 65 Democrats listed.

Ideal? No. I like Bernie Sanders and Al Franken. I like Gillibrand (and her placement is an error of the system, I believe it includes some of her votes as a House member, but am not sure).

Still. 22nd most liberal.

Based on actual votes and solid math.