Personally, I'd find this pretty encouraging…

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

…'twere it true. As Steve Benen points out, though...

...Obama and Joe Biden were both considered more liberal than Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders. This, alone, should make one wonder about the reliability of the rankings.

With a deeply flawed methodology and an apparently arbitrary ideological screen, the National Journal rankings are, well, they're silly. Obama is a fine Democratic Senator, and typically in sympathy with the Party's liberal wing, but most liberal senator?

I wish.