Bloodless Coup

National Journal Ranks Obama as the Most Liberal Senator in 2007

The Washington media types love the National Journal rankings, so you know this'll be a story in the campaign if Obama wins the nomination.

However, I'm highly dubious of any ranking system that says that Joe Biden is more liberal than Bernie Sanders.

UPDATE: These rankings of course don't include all votes, only "key votes" the National Journal selects. Turns out that on these votes Obama and Clinton voted very similarly, with only the following differences (discussed in that piece in The Guardian I linked to earlier this month). The votes:

But it's interesting to see where Clinton and Obama diverged. On 18/S1, "Establish a Senate Office of Public Integrity to handle ethics complaints against senators," Obama voted for, and Clinton voted against. On HR6, "Create a national action plan for reducing oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030," Clinton voted "yes," Obama didn't vote. On S1348, "Allow certain immigrants to stay in the United States while renewing their visas," Clinton voted no, Obama voted yes. And on Kyl-Lieberman, as dk points out, Obama didn't vote.