babbling blue

Somebody’s asleep on the job…

John McCain’s last Senate vote: April 8, 2008
Before that: March 13, 2008
Missed votes since April 8: 42

Barack Obama’s last Senate vote: May 13, 2008
Before that: April 23, 2008
Missed votes since May 13: 9

Hillary Clinton’s last Senate vote: May 13, 2008
Before that: April 24, 2008
Missed votes since May 13: 9

Interesting numbers, but they only start to tell the story.
Since the January 3rd Iowa caucus, there have been 135 recorded Senate votes (excludes possible “voice votes”) as of May 15th*. Of those 135, this is the number of “Abstains” from each candidate. (If there is a record of whether or not the Senator was present and Abstained or just didn’t bother to show up, I haven’t seen it.)

Barack Obama: 75 votes “missed” = 55.6%
Hillary Clinton: 80 votes “missed” = 59.3%
John McCain: 99 votes “missed” = 73.3%

I wonder if these Senators, particularly Mr. McCain, realize they are still getting paid to be Senators and serve the constituents that got them where they are today.

To put this into perspective, here are a few Senators that weren’t campaigning for something:

Arlen Specter (R-PA): 2 votes “missed” = 1.5%
Ben Nelson (D-NE): 4 votes “missed” = 3%
Russ Feingold (D-WI): 0 votes “missed” = 0%

Whenever someone brings this stuff up (I’m by no means the first), their spokemonkeys will usually give the canned response that being a Senator is more than just voting. While that’s true, voting and being a legislator in general is very big part of it. Sure they have their staff keeping up with the other duties generally performed by the office of the Senator. But where is their leader? Where is the champion that the people of New York, Illinois and especially Arizona elected to represent their interests in Congress?

*According to Obama’s Senate website, he voted on 5/22. This information was not available at my primary source yet. I did not check the other candidates’ sites.