The World is Talking. Global Politics

Sen. Barack Obama was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to the latest National Journal 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.”

Sen. Hillary Clinton, “the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.”

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is “the latest big name to endorse Sen. Barack Obama,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Volcker “could give the Illinois Democrat a boost by lending his gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough.”

As Whiskey Fire puts it so pithily: Anyway, the reason McCain is the GOP nominee is that they have no one else. And the reason they have no one else? Because they got nothing. The GOP is running on fumes,…

Belatedly (I’ve been busy, though you wouldn’t know it from the blank look on my face), I want to applaud Barry Crimmins’ postmortem on Bush’s SOTU, which happened way three days ago but still bears repeating, given its David Broderish…

Captain Video here, bringing you good boys and girls a thrilling tale of yesteryear, complete with pearls and polka dots, and, for your future postmodernists, the mocking laugh of executive glee over the misfortunes of others. Dig into those peanut…

A new InsiderAdvantage survey in Tennessee shows Sen. Hillary Clinton way ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, 59% to 26%.

In the Republican race, Sen. John McCain leads with 33%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 25% and Mitt Romney at 18%.

A new InsiderAdvantage survey in Georgia finds Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. Hillary Clinton, 52% to 36%.

In the Republican race, Sen. John McCain leads with 35%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 24% and Mitt Romney at 24%.

A new Democracy Corps survey in the 40 most competitive Republican-held congressional districts “shows Democrats have an historic opportunity to challenge deep into Republican territory. The Democrats have a more positive image than the Republicans across these 40 Republican districts where the race between the named Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger is now even.”

Key finding: “Democrats start off even with Republicans, 45% to 46%, in a challenging battleground that Republicans won by a 10-point margin in the past two elections.”

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Georgia finds Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. Hillary Clinton, 51% to 41%, in the Democratic presidential race.

Key findings: Obama gets 73% of the black vote. He trails Clinton 56% to 36% in the white vote, but that keeps it close enough to afford him a solid overall lead. The gender gap in the state is minimal. Obama leads 50% to 42% among women and 53% to 39% with men.

On the Republican side, it’s a very tight race with Mitt Romney at 32%, followed by Sen. John McCain at 31% and Mike Huckabee at 24%.

From the latest Evans-Novak Political Report: “It is very possible that Huckabee will pick up more delegates on Super Tuesday than will Romney. If Romney is in third place in delegates on February 6, that could end his bid.”

The reason? “The proportional or district-by-district states are largely in the South — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. While McCain and Huckabee battle over these states, Romney likely will run third across the South, further extending McCain’s lead.”