National Journal Finds That Partisan Divisions Have Persisted and Even Deepened in Obama's Washington

National Journal has issued its congressional vote ratings for 2009, and concludes:

Liberals, moderates, and conservatives stuck to their guns in 2009, whether for ideological, partisan, parochial, or electoral reasons, stymieing much of Obama's agenda. National Journal's annual vote ratings, which have ranked members of Congress on a conservative-to-liberal scale since 1981, found telling consistency in the long-standing ideological divides that define legislative battles on Capitol Hill. Some of those gulfs even deepened as the decades-long partisan sorting of liberals and conservatives into opposing camps continued apace last year.

The web site has extremely cool interactive rankings for all members of the House and Senate, from the most liberal (Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ronald Burris of Illinois, Ben Cardin of Maryland, and Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island were tied in the Senate) to the most conservative (led by Republican Senators James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Jim Bunning of Kentucky).