Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is the only presidential candidate in Congress to have missed a major vote on the Iraq war this year, and his absences are not sitting well with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Liz Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for Reid, told The Hill, “Sen. McCain has spent considerable time defending the president on Iraq and catering to the Republican base on immigration, but has only managed to show up for four of the last 14 Iraq votes and parachute into [yesterday’s] immigration press conference at the last minute. Who is the real John McCain?”
So John McCain failed to show up for four of the last 14 Iraq votes. Let's see now...McCain didn't participate in the vote on the May 17, 2006 Cloture Motion for H.R. 2206, he didn't participate on the vote on the motion to invoke cloture regarding the Cochran Amendment for H.R. 1495 on May 16, 2007, he didn't participate on the vote on the motion to invoke cloture regarding the Warner Amendment for H.R. 1495 on May 16, 2007, and McCain didn't participate on the vote regarding the Feingold Amendment for H.R. 1495 on May 16, 2007. I went through the entire Senate roll call record on voting to see what Iraq votes McCain even participated in. The last vote that I could find which McCain voted on, regarding Iraq, was a "no" vote on H.R. 1591, on March 29, 2007. In fact, John McCain did not participate in any of the Senate votes during the month of May. In contrast, Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton participated in every vote during the month of May, and Democratic Senator Barack Obama missed these four Senate votes in May. For the month of April, Senator McCain participated in only 3 votes--a "yes" vote to invoke cloture for Senate bill S. 372 on April 12, 2007, a "yes" vote to pass Senate bill S. 30 on April 11, 2007, and a "yes" vote to pass Senate bill S. 5 on April 11, 2007. Both Senate bills S. 30 and S. 5 involved stem cell research and Senate bill S. 372 was an intelligence funding bill. In contrast, Senator Clinton participated in every Senate vote during the month of April and Senator Obama missed four Senate votes during the month of April.
So out of 25 Senate votes during the month of May, Senator McCain did not participate in any of those votes. Out of the 21 Senate votes during the month of April, Senator McCain participated in only three votes. Senator Clinton participated in every vote during both months, and Senator Obama did not participate in four votes during May, and four votes during April. This is just a quick and dirty survey of these two months for these three senators. But even in this quick survey, Senator McCain is completely failing to do his job as a senator for the people of Arizona. McCain is placing his personal ambitions of running for president above that of his job as a senator. And this complete lack of voting on Senate bills for these two months really shows it. Harry Reid is correct in saying that McCain has spent more time pursuing his crass, personal ambition of becoming the president rather than doing his job as a senator. What is even more ironic is that the McCain campaign agrees with Reid. According to the Hill:
McCain’s campaign quickly counterattacked. Danny Diaz, spokesman for McCain, said, “John McCain has continued to stand up for what he believes: victory in Iraq and improved protection of our nation through comprehensive immigration reform. It is unfortunate that the Senate majority leader is more focused on partisan attacks than solving the serious problems confronting our nation.”
[...]
Responding to criticism of his missed votes, McCain has repeatedly criticized Senate Democratic leaders of playing politics with Iraq.
While McCain has missed four of 14 Senate roll calls on the war this year, other presidential candidates have managed their schedules around the high-profile votes.
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) voted on each of the 14 measures.
In the House, on three major votes dealing with the troop surge and supplemental funding for the war, the four announced presidential candidates voted every time.
Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) registered their votes on all three occasions.
McCain’s campaign said the rigorous travel schedule necessary when running for the White House makes it extremely difficult to be voting all the time in Washington.
But what the McCain campaign is not telling the American people is that Senator McCain is not just failing to participate in voting on Iraq, but also failing to vote on any Senate legislation. But there is a reason for this. According to the McCain campaign:
“Sen. McCain has traveled the country speaking to the importance of winning in Iraq and clearly stated that we must give the new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be too damaging to our nation,” Diaz said.
“Regrettably, it is impossible for a presidential candidate to avoid missing votes, but Sen. McCain has not missed a vote where his vote would have affected the outcome, and he will make every effort to be in the Senate on the occasions when it would.”
So Senator McCain will only vote on those bills, where his vote will affect the outcome of the bills. Okay. For Senate bill S. 372 (the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007), the outcome of the April 12, 2007 vote was 94 "yes" votes, 3 "no" votes, and 3 "not participating" votes. McCain voted "yes" for bill S 372. For the April 11, 2007 vote on Senate bill S. 30, the passage of the Hope Act, the outcome was 70 "yes" votes, 28 "no" votes, and 2 "not participating" votes. In that vote, McCain voted "yes." For the April 11, 2007 vote on Senate bill S. 5, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, the outcome was 63 "yes" votes, 34 "no" votes, and 3 "not participating" votes. McCain voted "yes" for Senate bill S. 5. The closest vote that McCain voted on was Senate bill S. 5, and the outcome was still a clear majority vote of 63-34. The other two votes that McCain voted on were clearly over the two-thirds majority. And to top it off, McCain voted yes for all three bills. These are not close votes where a McCain vote could have affected the outcome of the passage of these bills. McCain could have voted on the May 9, 2007 Durbin Amendment for Senate bill S. 1082, Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2007, where the vote was split 47-47 with 6 "not participating" votes. But Senator McCain did not participate in that vote. Senator McCain could have voted on the April 26, 2007 Conference Report for Senate bill H.R. 1591, U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. That bill passed by a vote of 51-46, with 3 "not participating" senators--one of whome was Senator McCain. I could go through the entire senate voting record just to see what the vote tally was, which senators, who are presidential candidates, voted on the bills, and which candidates didn't participate. But just looking at the tally for these last two months, it is clear that Senator John McCain is not doing his job as senator.
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