[FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif][FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]McCain Misses Vote on Economic Stimulus[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif] WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain skipped a difficult Senate vote Wednesday on whether to make 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans eligible for rebate checks as part of a proposed economic stimulus package. The Arizona senator's decision to miss the vote appeared to come at the last minute, after his plane had landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington just before the proceedings opened on the Senate floor. Asked Wednesday morning to comment on the pending vote, McCain talked about the need to pass a stimulus measure quickly. Later, on his plane, he said he was not sure he would make the vote. "I haven't had a chance to talk about it at all, have not had the opportunity to, even," McCain said. "We've just been too busy, focused on other stuff. I don't know if I'm doing that. We've got a couple of meetings scheduled." Whichever way McCain may have voted, it would have been a difficult choice given his status as the Republican presidential front-runner. Senate Democrats cleverly bundled the rebates for seniors and veterans, key voting blocs, with expanded unemployment benefits and home heating subsidies for the jobless and poor. President Bush and Republican leaders, as well as conservatives McCain was scheduled to woo on Thursday, vehemently oppose the expanded benefits and subsidies. That put McCain in a bad political spot. Voting "no" with Republican leaders would have offended millions of Social Security recipients and the disabled veterans not scheduled to receive rebates. Voting "yes," on the other hand, risked alienating Bush, GOP leaders and conservatives already suspicious of McCain's political leanings. McCain was speaking Thursday before a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a group that booed him last year in absentia. For McCain, not voting meant not going on the record either way. He has missed all eight Senate roll call votes this year. Republicans prevailed in blocking the Democratic proposal, saying they will try again later to include seniors and veterans. GOP leaders would not say how McCain would have voted. Asked whether there was any reason to believe he would have broken with the party and voted for the Democrats' package, Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said: "I have no reason to believe that." McCain's absence, he added, would not have changed the outcome of the vote. There was confusion among McCain's his staff about whether he would make the vote. Campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said when he landed that she believed he was headed to the Capitol to vote, but a second spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan, said later that he would not make it. Democrats, including a spokesman for the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, jumped on McCain's absence. Clinton voted for the measure, which failed on a 58-41 vote. Supporters needed 60 votes to prevail. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid had voted in favor, but switched it at the last moment in a parliamentary move that allows him to bring up the measure for another vote at a later date. "By failing to stand up as the deciding vote, John McCain let our families down," said Clinton aide Phil Singer. "Tonight's events prove once again that we need a president who will be ready from Day One to act in the interests of middle-class families and turn our ailing economy around." [/FONT]
Well it gives him plausible deniability either way. If it's a bad bill, he didn't vote for it, if it turns out ok, then he was just so busy campaigning he would have voted for it if he had time.
They shouldn't be trying to "stimulate" the fucking economy anyway, and supporting disabled veterans to the absolute best of our ability shouldn't even be a question.
Fuck.Ing. Amazing. So they delay the prosess further by delaying it further because it didn't carry them to a win, then lambaste McCain with the premise that he's the one responsable for depriveing all those people their duly awaited entitlement checks. Go figure. If the seiniors have paid in then by all means give 'em a fucking check. They'll contribute to the end game as will the Vets. They'll dink around with this until it passes a point of being a benefit to the economy until it becomes a hinderance. Economists have said it's imperative to get this ball rolling asap or it could hurt things if being delayed too long. I dunno, just send me mine and let's get this show on the road.
I'm sure McCain missed it on purpose. If he votes for it, he's siding with the Democrats, again, in bloating another bill. If he votes against it, he'll be derided for not supporting veterans who the extra money was supposed to go to. It was politcally expediant to miss the vote so as to not open up an avenue of criticism. The true mark of a leader, of course.
So what? It's not as though it's a real economic stimulus package or that his vote matters for passing it. The "stimulus" bill is a bill that stimulates about as much as Rosie O'Donnell porn. It looks just enough like what the American people expect a stimulus bill to look like in order to make people believe the government is trying to do something; it's a purely CYA measure with no significant economic effect likely. And a bill passes with or without McCain's vote. There are lots of things to dislike about McCain, but missing a vote on a CYA photo op bill so that he can run his campaign isn't one of them.
McCain admitted he didn't understand economics anyway, during one of the debates when Ron Paul was eating McCain's lunch on national television...
Next time maybe he'll admit that the sky is blue or that George Bush is wrong when he believes that he's an instrument of god.
Just one more bit of evidence against the man, IMO. He ought to be able to take a principled stand one way or the other and live with the fallout. This way he's just a weasel.
If he has missed so many votes why hasn't he just quit from the senate? Surely the best thing he could do for the people of his state would be to say that he no longer has the chance to dedicate himself to them...
McCain, not unusual for a politician, cares little of that. If he wanted to represent his state so sincerely, he would be the most ardent opponent of illegal immigration. If I was that old, I'd retire and spend the rest of my days chasing a little white ball around. But I don't have an ever-present yearning for power and prestige.
Considering the big deal the Republicans made over John Fucking Kerry's not showing up for work, you can bet McCain's attendance will be gone over with a fine tooth comb. I'm A-OK with none of them showing up to work. Ever. All that means is that they'll have less chances of passing dumb shit that costs me money.
He thinks we owe it to him I speculate. The chance to sit in the big chair has been twarted more than once.
Yet Obama has a proud history of not voting or voting "present" back during his Illinois Senate days.
I can't quote chapter and verse on his Illinois Senate record, but I know the "present" votes that Clinton has been trying to use against him were a politcal move during some abortion related votes. He was urged to vote "present" rather than "no" so it wouldn't be used against him later. More can be found in this Chicago Tribute article:
Oh, I understand the process, and not wanting to hand your opposition future ammunition. Still, if you're right on the issue, and can articulate your reasons for doing it, you take your stand. Using "politics as usual" as your excuse doesn't bolster your position as a candidate of change. If anything it shows you to be as much a part of the status quo as that you're running against.
Yes, that is the spin. How gullible you have to be to believe it is another matter. Pro-life ad makers are not nearly so retarded as to be unable to figure out how to use a "present" vote against a candidate as though it were a "no" vote. If that spin is in fact not spin but strategy, that's really bad strategy that reflects really badly on Obama and whoever convinced him to follow it.
If you can't bothered to go on the record regarding partial birth abortion, that pretty much says everything we need to know.
Not voting on the bill was a smart move; flying to Washington and then not voting on it was not. The bill was a lose-lose situation for many Republicans, and the Senate Democratic leadership intentionally made it that way. They did exactly the same thing Republican leaders had been doing for the previous 12 years: take an enormously popular bill and then load it up with amendments the other party doesn't like, in order to force them into either (a) voting for things they don't support, or (b) voting against, say, food for orphans or body armor for U.S. soldiers. If McCain had just stayed out on the campaign trail, the only charge anyone could have levied at him was that he skipped out on his job because he was too busy campaigning -- a charge that wouldn't really stick, because everybody knows it can be applied to any member of Congress who runs for president, Clinton and Obama included. But now in the general election campaign, his opponent can say "When tax relief for millions of working Americans and help for the unemployed was on the floor, John McCain flew to Washington -- and then skipped the vote." Because he flew into town and then missed the vote, it looks like a dodge.
