Let’s Look at Their Records: Obama & McCain’s Senate Votes

August 7, 2008

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Night after night the mainstream media continue to parade McCain around as the “elder statesman” who has been around, and seen it all. While painting (both directly and indirectly) Barack Obama as the “risky choice” who has this election gift wrapped - while noting he is the only one that can lose it for himself. Within this narrative are a handful of reoccurring themes, with one of them being Obama’s short time in the U.S. Senate - subsequently making his politics “unknown.” All of this of course is a a joke which continues to show how sad the media and their reporting has come to in this day and age of “sensationalism over substance.”

There is no arguing the fact Barack Obama has received the brunt end of the media’s “smack stick”, I mean there has been polls taken on the subject - and well - the results are awfully supportive of my above declaration:

“The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.”

Now if these numbers surprise you then all I have to say is - wake up. All this talk about “media adoration of Obama” is just that - talk, babble, malarkey. But what can you do, the GOP and the mouthpieces they have embedded throughout the different facets of the mainstream media have made careers out of whining about a supposed “left wing bias”. So this is really nothing new in that sense.

So, with that said, let us move on to the meat of this article - I am referring to the actual voting records of both Senator Barack Obama and John McCain, and comparing them in an effort to clear up some of these otherwise baseless discrepancies that have framed Obama as being the “risky” one of the two:

“First of all, while McCain’s military courage may be unquestionable, his legislative courage is certainly very questionable. The following are important issues about which John McCain, summoning all of his Presidential ardor, decided he did not want to decide; he didn’t vote. NV = Not Voting.”

Clean Energy Achievement Criteria Motion Agreed - Senate (56 - 39)
McCain No Vote, Obama Yes

Alternative Energy Subsidies Cloture Not Invoked - Senate (57 - 36)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Energy Act of 2007 Bill Passed - Senate (65 - 27)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Preventing Petroleum Export Organizations (NOPEC Act of 2007) Amendment Adopted - Senate (70 - 23)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 Bill Passed - Senate (69 - 28)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Striking Telecom Immunity from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Bill Amendment Rejected - Senate (32 - 66)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Equal Pay Bill Cloture Not Invoked - Senate (56 - 42)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Iraq and Afghanistan War Funding, Unemployment Benefits Extension, and GI Bill Concurrence Vote Passed (Senate) (92 - 6)
McCain NV, Obama Yes

Well I don’t expect we will be hearing much from the McCain camp regarding the whole “showing up to vote on serious issues” front - well, let me take that back. Seeing as though the GOP is arguably the single largest band of hypocrites organized on one continent, I wouldn’t be at all surprised at their raising a point in regards to frequency of voting in the Senate.

Anyways, I am not going to start into the whole analysis of these examples, that is for another day - another day in which I have hours upon hours of free time because that’s what it will take to break down the figment of everyone’s imagination regarding McCain having anything over Obama in the whole “judgment” and/or voting record category.