“On foreign policy, for example, Obama's liberal score of 92 and conservative score of 7 indicate that he was more liberal in that issue area than 92 percent of the senators and more conservative than 7 percent. Clinton was more liberal than 83 percent of the senators on foreign policy and more conservative than 16 percent. …

In 2007, Obama's composite liberal score of 95.5 was the highest in the Senate. Rounding out the top five most liberal senators last year were Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., with a composite liberal score of 94.3; Joseph Biden, D-Del., with a 94.2; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with a 93.7; and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., with a 92.8.

Clinton, meanwhile, tied as the 16th-most-liberal senator in 2007 with Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.; both had a composite liberal score of 82.8. Clinton's home-state colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was the 15th-most-liberal, with a composite score of 83. …

Overall in NJ's 2007 ratings, Obama voted the liberal position on 65 of the 66 key votes on which he voted; Clinton voted the liberal position 77 of 82 times. Obama garnered perfect liberal scores in both the economic and social categories. His score in the foreign-policy category was nearly perfect, pulled down a notch by the only conservative vote that he cast in the ratings, on a Republican-sponsored resolution expressing the sense of Congress that funding should not be cut off for U.S. troops in harm's way. The Senate passed the resolution 82-16 with the support of both Obama and Clinton. The 16 opponents included mostly liberals, such as Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and Sanders.

Clinton took the conservative position four other times in NJ's 2007 ratings. …

Kerry, who has endorsed Obama, told NJ on January 29 that attacks on his own liberalism had no impact on the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. That line of attack wouldn't work against Obama either, he said. 'The whole point, folks, is — and the Republicans love to be simplistic and they also love to be wrong — is that he represents somebody who's bringing together a broad coalition of people,' Kerry said. 'It's not going to stick. People are tired of the stupidity of these labels. They're tired of that game.'”

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/