Voting with Bush?
Is it really true that John McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time as a recent Obama speech claimed? Yes! After all, we do have a two party system, and they belong to the same party, although neither is particularly "conservative" on many issues. McCain portrays himself as a maverick and one who reaches across the aisle (Obama sounds like he's lifted some of McCain's phrases). In 2007 McCain voted with the President 95% of the time. Obama votes along party lines 97% of the time. So?- . . . consider that Obama's votes were in line with the president's position 40 percent of the time in 2007. That shouldn't be terribly surprising. Even the Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, voted with Bush 39 percent of the time last year, according to the way Congressional Quarterly rates the votes.
The McCain campaign points out that Obama told a local TV interviewer recently that "the only bills that I voted for, for the most part, since I've been in the Senate were introduced by Republicans with George Bush." Obama was actually wrong about that. In 2006 he voted alongside the president 49 percent of the time, and in 2005, the year before Democrats took control of the Senate, Obama voted with the president only 33 percent of the time.
Also, Obama voted in line with fellow Senate Democrats 97 percent of the time in 2007 and 2005, and 96 percent of the time in 2006, according to CQ. FactCheck.org
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2 comments:
McCain needs to address this head on in the GOP convention. Sure he voted with Bush X % of time. "Well my opponent voted with Ted Kennedy 99% of the time, he voted with Harry Reid 96% of the time, etc, etc, etc." Also, while you can't address every vote I'm sure there are some that would be particularly effective to show why one vote was better than another.
I think politics are broken because if you want people to pay for your campaign, you have to court the far left or the far right to get people to vote for you in the primaries.
And "regular" business in Washington seems to mean creating bills that are extremely right or left-- so you have to vote the way of the party because of the way the bills are worded.
Can we please have common sense bills and room for dissent from BOTH parties? Most people aren't democrat or republican-- really. We do the same thing and call ourselves one or the other. Too bad for everyone that we don't have more choices.
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