Electoral-vote.com has done the work to compile a fine list of the Senate's most liberal members, using as a benchmark the aggregate scores from seven independent ranking organizations. On the one hand, each organization tends to focus on one area of policy, which helps analytically separate the senators using a common metric. On the other hand, this process generates a somewhat apples-oranges-pears-bananas -- etc. -- approach that at best gives us a range of liberalism. Hillary Clinton's highest scores are a perfect one from NARAL and 91 percent from the SEIU.
Barack Obama also receives a perfect score from NARAL, about the same scores from the ADA and SEIU a slightly higher one from the ACLU, and somewhat lower on CDF and LCV. This simply confirms what we already know: both Clinton and Obama are virtually indistinguishable on policy. Yet "most liberal" hardly seems right. Using electoral-vote's mean average of these scores, Clinton comes in as the 38th most liberal, Obama the 42nd, which makes them closer to "centrists" I suppose.
Compared to John McCain, however (96th most liberal, or 5th most conservative), they are less extreme. The Votemaster promises a similar chart using data from independent conservative ranking organizations, and we'll revisit this issue again then.
--Mori Dinauer
