Tough Crowd

Krugman has another anti-Obama column, in which he makes this rather odd claim:

Now, nobody would mistake Mr. Obama for a Republican — although contrary to claims by both supporters and opponents, his voting record places him, with Senator Clinton, more or less in the center of the Democratic Party, rather than in its progressive wing.

If progressives want to insist that Obama isn’t part of their party’s progressive wing, that’s their prerogative.  I have noted for some time some progressive activists’ dissatisfaction with Obama’s “unity” routine, but I think Krugman’s claim still fails some basic empirical tests.  Obama’s average ADA rating for the last three years is 90, which understates things.  Perhaps someone will argue that ADA ratings are unreliable or selective, or that they cannot capture the differences between a “centrist” such as Obama and real progressives, but by one of the standard measures of such things Obama rates as being pretty far to the left.  His 2007 rating of 75 was the result of a number of missed votes (undoubtedly missed because of his campaign schedule) and followed 2006 and 2005 ratings of 95 and 100 respectively.  If that is evidence of being at “the center” of the Democratic Party, I don’t know what you have to do to be progressive.