Anyone who has listened to my broadcast going back to my days in Chicago on WYLL-AM 1160 will tell you that I was labeling Obama as the most liberal member of Congress - the day he walked in.
On the Democratic side, the analysis of "lifetime" voting records shows Obama as the most liberal with a score of 84.3 after two full years in the Senate. The most liberal score possible was 99.
The lifetime liberal scores for the other Democrats:
-Kucinich, 79.4
-Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, 79.2
-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, 78.8
-Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, 76.8
The rankings differ if you look only at their 2006 scores. That year Kucinich edged Obama by one point as the most liberal, and Clinton was the least liberal, as she sought re-election and prepared to launch her presidential campaign.
Their ideological purity also varies by issue areas.
Obama, for example, is more liberal on economic and foreign policy issues and slightly less liberal on social policies. Clinton and Dodd are most liberal on social policy questions, less so on economic and foreign policy votes.
Biden is most liberal on economics, much less so on foreign policy.