Political Punch

As of 2/15, McCain missed 43 straight Senate votes. [It’s gotten worse since 2/15] That's about 50% of the votes taken.

In this particular vote, despite being in Washington, and despite the fact that fellow Senators who traveled with him made it to the Senate in time to vote, McCain was the only senator to miss the vote on whether to improve the economic stimulus package by adding assistance for 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans to the package.

How could he know how everyone would vote on such a close count? It could have gone the other way and he wasn't there when it could have mattered.

And incase you’re wondering about Democratic frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), they have missed just 1.8 percent and 6.4 percent of votes this year, respectively.

So who is doing their job and campaigning, and who is not even trying??

You people are missing the point. The only reason this person attacked Hillary for not voting after is because she criticized McCain for not voting. That's just about as hypocritical as the time she criticized Obama for supporting a nuclear bill when she supported the same bill!!! And Mark Penn gets paid by that company

Rooney,

Why is that lame argument doled out everytime someone points out the fact that Obama is too spineless to vote?

His record of 'not voting' in the US SENATE can be easily verified at votesmart

It is clear when you look the implications of those missed US SENATE votes he is trying to hide something.

And it isn't hard to conceptualize the big business interests that are being appeased by his lack of voting spine in the 50/50 party split of the US Senate! Geez....talk about missing the point!!!

Sorry, but Bush didn't fool me then, when he ran on his....'No nation building, humble foreign policy' bs.

And Obama doesn't fool me now, with his.....'look over there, Hillary likes big business', bs either.

Those spineless 'not voting' votes scream something completely different!

Where did McCain say that about the first vote? He skipped it and it failed by one - it's very easy for him to say now what he would have done.

He did not vote on a measure that was in doubt and ultimately failed 59-40. That is a fact - he ducked. Mr. Straight Talk took a dive.

You can't compare that to Hillary and Obama missing a vote that passed with the support of 90 Senators. It just isn't the same thing.

I know you guys always like to talk about balance, but it really seems you have your thumb on the scale on this one. Totally unfair and not equivalent. But you guys always suck up to MCain and bash Hillary - so it isn't surprising.

Hillary is as dumb as a rock. Nothing else matters.

Glad to see Sen.Clinton getting some
support here. She voted.
What I'm really outraged about is David
Schuster's comments on MSNBC about
Hillary "pimping" her daughter... to work in her campaign. The language, the
sexual inuendo is the height bias in this campaign. Do any of you recall the
Romney boys being referred to as "pimped" out? It is really beyond the
pale. I filed a complaint.

funny how obama's failure to vote on kyl-lieberman ammendment doesn't undercut his argument that hillary gave bush the benefit of the doubt on iran.

I'm reminded of that old saw, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," or, in this instance, "What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose." The goose, of course, being the Senator from New York having stirred up this pot in the first place.

Maybe you need a second update. The fact that McCain said he would have voted against is meaningless. He didn't show up because voting against would have been unseemly for the general election. Why is this blog so tempted to convey simply everything as hypocrisy by Hillary?

Obama supporters keep saying to go to Obama's website for clarification on his issuesss...

HELLO! EARTH TO OBAMA SUPPORTERS!!!

THERE ARE A GREAT MANY PEOPLE WHO DO NOT OWN COMPUTERS, BUT THEN AGAIN, OBAMA'S YUPPY SUPPORTERS HAVE NO CLUE THAT THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF U.S. CITIZENS WHO DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET..

Ergo...Mr. Obama might want to consider reaching out in a non-yuppy, computer illerate way and articulating more specifics in his spoken word.

Color me as a skeptical seasoned voter who is not drinking the Obama Kool Aid. I refuse to become an Obamarainian without him providing more substance in a forum other than the Internet.

Not voting based on the idea that "my vote won't matter" is decidedly un-democratic.

Our leaders should set the example. If they want us to vote, they should vote.

Isn't that what we pay them to do?

"Obama would have just voted Present anyway. Do we need someone running the country thats afraid to vote yes or no?" - Richard

Richard,

Now, that's simply ignorant of the concept of the Present Vote and doesn't respect its significance in state politics, particularly in Illinois. Present votes are cast in cases where would-be supporters of a particular bill find either a loophole or a specific piece of language which could be used by opponents of the bill to overturn its passage in the state's supreme court. It's a statement vote; it says, "We need to fix something before going forward in order to make sure this bill gets passed." Present votes actually indicate when a legislator has really done his or her homework. It's unfortunate that some would prey on our ignorance to spin that as apathy or uncertainty.

"Obama says nothing and does nothing and is treated like a hero/ I don't understand! He's more like a Cult Leader than a President." -Bs4shure

Bs,
Just give in. I know you can do it. Fight the cynicism and jump on the bus. Trust me, you'll be better off.

Look, either way, all of the candidates claim they care, they all should have been there, close or not. In the end, we're getting rid of Bush soon, but our next options don't look very good either.

Reid had asked for ALL Senators to return for the bill vote Wednesday that did not pass as the expectation was that it would be close. Obama and Hillary were there and McCain was not. Reid and everyone else knew that Obama and Hillary would not be needed for today's votes and guess what...they both were not there. And just as a reminder Hillary is not the one that has missed the most votes since running for President...that would be McCain with Obama running slightly behind.

For the first time Hillary finally gets some support from the comments. We are so sick of how obvious the media looks for anything negative they can find against her, and most time this is distorted, and only reports positive things about Obama. No one in politics is that perfect. And one can surmise why Obama has such a large cult following. With media support and naive souls he is the preacher man. It truly shows how the media is owned by the far right...but plays it smart...God helps us all

Obama says nothing and does nothing and is treated like a hero/ I don't understand! He's more like a Cult Leader than a President.

Obama gets an easy pass on everything. Who's using the race card?

Obama hammers Clinto for her vote on Iraq and Iran. After coming to the Senate, he voted exactly like Hillary on funding the war. If he was really against the war before he was for it, why didn't he vote against the funding? And if he thought a non-binding resolution on Iraq was soooo important, why didn't he vote. Oh, I forget, he was campaigning. Something he's been doing since he was elected to thesenate. Senate.

Democrats tax the working man and pass your money out to welfare queens to get them to breed and vote democrat. Wake up Americans before this country is full of democrat welfare queens

Jake, you write that "As with McCain's failure to vote Wednesday,
her absence made no difference factually in terms of what happened."

That is false. McCain's vote meant everything and Hillary's meant nothing.

The vote that Hillary missed was 81-16. Her abasence had no effect on the bill.

On the vote McCain skipped, the Dems failed to break the Repub filibuster 58-41. Facially, this looks like two votes short, but it's been reported everywhere that Senator Reid only voted against cloture on Wednesday so that (under Senate rules) he as the Majority Leader could bring the bill back later. Had McCain showed up and voted for cloture it would have passed 60-40. In other words, McCain was THE DECIDING VOTE.

McCain has said he would have voted "no," but all that means is that he refused to show up so that he could avoid a potentially damaging vote. This is obvious because McCain purposefully avoided going to the Senate, even though Sens. Lieberman and Graham who were on the same plane as McCain made it to the vote.

I can't believe that you don't know all this and yet you write this item in order to give people the exact opposite impression.

Shameful.

Dan S.
The Clinton campaign has made the same charge repeatedly over the past year, including a couple weeks before the Iowa caucus. The Obama campaign had rebuffed it by invoking statements by an Illinois Planned Parenthood official, who said the "present" votes were part of a deliberate strategy to protect other pro-choice legislators, other than Obama, in vulnerable districts.

Please take the time to learn the facts. The media is not against HRC; she just is a train wreck that they report on. She’s just like Brittney Spears… You reap what you sow.

Hillary isn't the savior of America she is the dazzeled Odicious who wants to clean house for everyone. Humility brothers and sisters is her staff.

Dan S., your comparison would be valid IF Sen. McCain would have voted FOR cloture. But Sen. McCain said he would have voted NO. So the final vote would have been 58-42.

Anyone with an ounce of decency and half a brain would recognize the difference between missing a vote that passes 91-6 (Clinton) and missing a vote that FAILED to reach the filibuster-proof 60 votes by a 59-40 margin. (McCain). (The final vote was 58-41 because the majority leader switched his vote at the last moment for parliamentary procedural reasons.) In other words, McCain was absent when ONE vote could have made the difference, while Clinton missed a virtually unanimous vote. The media's hatred of Hillary Clinton marches on.

Obama would have just voted Present anyway. Do we need someone running the country thats afraid to vote yes or no?

Well said BO.

I love Clinton and Obama both - I really do...but more and more I find myself pulling for Obama.

No. He missed it too. But, of course, he wasn't out there putting his foot in his mouth like Clinton.

Obama didn't vote either, but why clutter a good Hillary bash with any facts like that...

Did Obama vote?