So says Oliver Willis, one of five leftist bloggers to meet with The One himself today.

President Obama personally told me he considers himself a progressive, FYI

Which is interesting considering, via Politico‘s Ben Smith, he told New Democrats that he’s a New Democrat. Indeed, here’s the story from March 2009:

President Barack Obama firmly resists ideological labels, but at the end of a private meeting with a group of moderate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, he offered a statement of solidarity.

“I am a New Democrat,” he told the New Democrat Coalition, according to two sources at the White House session.

The group is comprised of centrist Democratic members of the House, who support free trade and a muscular foreign policy but are more moderate than the conservative Blue Dog Coalition.

So is the president a progressive or New Democrat?