His "victory" is nothing to sneeze at. Obama edged the only avowed Socialist in the Senate as Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont, ranked No. 4 on the liberal list. Obama even edged Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, who is generally perceived as the Man of the Left in Washington. Feingold didn’t crack the Top Five. Rhode Island newcomer Sheldon Whitehouse, Delaware’s Joe Biden and New Jersey’s Bobby Menendez did.
Obama’s “win" is not good news for his campaign, which promises to attract Republicans and independents to its side in the November election.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out today that John McCain is loathed by the hard-right social conservative wing of the GOP. He becomes much more bearable with that crowd running against the arch-liberal on Capitol Hill. It’s safe to say that the Republican attack machine will be betraying Obama as a commie by the time November comes around.
Hillary Clinton, Obama’s debate opponent this evening, is No. 16 on the NJ list of leading libs. That’s an “improvement” from her 32nd place finish in `06.
The NJ based its poll on 99 Senate votes. Obama and Clinton pretty much voted the same way, splitting up on only ten tallies. The Illinois Senator joined conservatives on a single vote, a Republican-sponsored resolution expressing the sense of Congress that funding for U.S. troops in Iraq/Afghanistan should not be cut off.
The NJ notes that Obama, during his “coming out speech” at the `04 Democratic convention in Boston disparaged political labels.
He said:
“Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spinmasters and negative-ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight: There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America-there is the United States of America.”
Hope he’s right.