On voting with party, voting with the President

I don’t pimp FactCheck.org as much as I should, because it’s a great site. Oh sure, not nearly as entertaining and opinionated as other sites such as, say, this one. Still, if you want an honest assessment of claims made, they’re the go-to guys.

Barack Obama has recently been claiming that John McCain has voted with the president 95% of the time, so FC checked it out. Was it true? Well, yes.

The claim is true. According to Congressional Quarterly’s Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president’s position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However, McCain’s support of President Bush’s position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party’s position has been as low as 67 percent (2001).

Democrats are, of course, attempting to make the case that a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the policies of Bush, whose approval ratings are, to put it charitably, not a political asset for McCain.

Now there’s one big lesson to be taken from this: McCain is pandering, shamelessly so, to the Republican base in order to aid his presidential career. When it suits him to be a “Maverick” (such as, oh, a Senate race), then suddenly he’ll drift more centrist. But now that it’s time to really appeal to the right, off we go.

However, FC makes a “rebuttal” of sorts that kinda goes off the reservation.

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.

The problem, as I’ve said before, is that “voting with the party” is a hazy way of looking at things. It’s one thing to say Obama is very similar to Clinton because they vote together, but to say “votes with the party” is rough, particularly in a very divided Senate. Each side votes with its own kind in a show of party strength. But even that means nothing.

McCain voting with the president most of the time isn’t that meaningful anyway any more than Obama voting with Clinton is. Sure it’s a nice thing to look at in order to sling arrows at the opponent, but in the end when we’re talking about who votes with who, when we’re talking the same party in an especially partisan political climate, party unity isn’t surprising.

What is worth looking at, however, is that McCain shifted. It isn’t like Bush’s policies have changed vastly over the last three years, but in 2005 he wasn’t gunning for the presidential race. He could still play “maverick”. As the nomination grew closer and closer, his pandering to his base grew more and more apparent. That, my friends, is what matters and that is what we need to expose.