Most Liberal?

By Ben Trott

A reoccurring theme during last Friday’s first presidential debate was the two senators’ ‘records’. At one point, McCain claimed that Obama was the ‘most liberal’ (read: leftwing) member of the Senate, adding the quip, ‘It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left.’

As part of the New York Times’ ‘Check Point’ series, fact-checking statements made during the presidential election, they ran a real-time, live blog during the debate. The blog quickly noted that the National Journal had indeed provided data illustrating that Obama had the most liberal voting record in 2007 (he was ranked 16th in 2005 and 10th in 2006). However, it also pointed out that the Congressional Quarterly had used a different index and found Obama has voted with President Bush almost 50% of the time.