Remember this?
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
That's National Journal's 2007 listing of senators (almost all of them--except those who voted less than half the time, like McCain), based on National Journal's interpretation of whether the senators' votes were liberal or conservative. Obama's #1, and Biden's #3 in NJ's liberal rating (and conversely, last place and 3rd from last in the conservative rating).
It's not like this is information that's obscure--the media were more than happy to report this stuff--presumably to "make the race closer when Obama was ahead." If our country were "center-right" like some people like to claim, we would've seen a shift to McCain. But instead, it looks like the final tally will be Obama with a popular vote of 7 percentage points higher than McCain and an electoral vote tally of more than twice of McCain's.
Here are some notable Senators' rankings...
Obama (soon to be D-USA!) #1
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) #2
Biden (soon to be D-USA!) #3
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) #4
Russ Feingold (D-WI) #10
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) #17
John Kerry (D-MA) #20
Ted Kennedy (D-MA) #28
Olympia Snowe (R-ME) #50 (highest ranking R)
Ben Nelson (D-NE) #53 (lowest ranking D)
Jim DeMint (R-SC) last place
Granted, this changes year-to-year (Obama was #10 and Biden was #24 in 2006, though Jim DeMint was in the cellar that year as well as in '07), we can now actually use these rankings in our favor--to say that as a nation as a whole, since we elected by a substantial margin the #1 Senator on this list and that this ranking has been visible in the news, that we actually have a liberal mandate. (Interestingly, note that while McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time, he actually was only #53 on the list in '06--basically just "right of center" but not truly conservative, at least according to NJ.)
Of course, there are many other reasons people like Obama--his strong intellect, his charisma, his interest in outreach to other nations, his sincere plan to be President for everbody and of course to bring a refreshing change from our disaster of an administration that we've endured for 8 years. But the fact that Obama has at least been reported to vote "liberal" certainly at least plays somewhat of a role. Thus, if past Republican presidents have claimed a conservative mandate, I think we could make an argument for a liberal mandate. At a minimum, we should debunk any notion that we're a "right-of-center" nation any longer--we are certainly at least "left-of-center".
Update: I should've probably made more emphasis that I don't so much view these rankings as accurate, yet the rankings very well could've influenced people's perceptions regardless (since most people just hear the ranking but know nothing about NJ or their methodologies).