Reply #91: Might have to do with the bills the rankings are based on

[PeaceProgProsp]

because in '04 the National Journal, a non-ideological magazine, said Kerry and Edwards were the most liberal senators based on six or seven bills they picked out as indicative of a politician's position in the spectrum, and they said that Edwards became more liberal over his tenure, theorizing that, once he decided he wasn't going to run for Senate he was freed up to become the liberal he wanted to be if not for having to win reelection in a moderate to conservative state.

Regardless, he was clearly a vast improvement over Faircloth and Helms, who were 3 and 8, or whatever, in the rankings you cited.

I bet you can't find another state where a Democrat was so different from any Republican who served within ten years -- and that's a pretty good thing if you ask me.

If he's so willing to go so far left within a state that is more conservative than the average American state, perhaps he's willing to lead the nation as a whole to the left of where it is now, sort of the way a trial lawyer would lead a jury to make the right choice, if you know what I mean...