Very according to Josh Orton:

Melody Barnes, Domestic Policy Council served as chief counsel to Senator Ted Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee from 1985 to 1993. Want to get an idea of how progressive she is? Read this: In January of 2007, prior to President Bush’s state of the union address, Barnes wrote this essay for the Washington Post, What a Progressive President Might Say:

"Here at home there is urgent work to do to fight the historically high — and growing — gap between our richest and poorest citizens. While the mean income of households on the low end of the income spectrum — the bottom 20 percent — is just $10,655 a year, the income of the top twenty percent of households averages almost $160,000. That’s 15 times as much. At the same time, according to the latest census figures, the middle class, beset with stagnant wages and mountainous debts, is shrinking. The sad fact is that one of our most cherished values as a society, namely equality of opportunity, is fading as a reality for far too many people…"