Posted on 01/25/2004 12:05:09 AM PST by VaBthang4
Sen. John Kerry, emerging as the favorite to win the New Hampshire primary, often tells supporters he has the courage and qualifications to stand up to George W. Bush when it counts. "I have the ability to stand up to George Bush," Kerry said as he campaigned in the last days before the Iowa caucuses. A few days earlier, Kerry said voters want a candidate who can "stand up to George Bush and his bullies."
As a senator with the responsibility to cast a vote on a variety of contentious issues, Kerry has had many opportunities to square off with the president. Yet an analysis of Kerry's 2003 Senate voting record shows that he did not show up for most of the Senate's confrontations with the White House.
The publication Congressional Quarterly examined 119 recorded votes held in 2003 in which the president had taken a position. CQ found that Kerry was present for just 28 percent of those votes. In contrast, Kerry's colleague from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, was present for 97 percent of the votes.
When Kerry showed up, he did indeed vote against the president a significant number of times. In 2003, according to CQ, Kerry sided against the president 70 percent of the time. Kennedy, usually viewed as the gold standard of liberal orthodoxy, voted against Bush 53 percent of the time.
In a larger examination of all Senate votes, CQ found that Kerry and Kennedy have compiled remarkably similar voting records — a fact that will no doubt be used by Republicans who will seek to portray Kerry as a classic Massachusetts liberal, should he win the Democratic nomination and face President Bush in November's general election.
CQ found that in 2003, Kerry voted with Kennedy 93 percent of the time on roll-call votes in which both men were present. While that might seem like a lot, it was, historically, a rather low number for Kerry; who voted with Kennedy 100 percent of the time on key votes in 2001, 1999, 1998, 1993, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, and 1985, according to a Republican analysis of CQ's designated key votes from those years.
There are other indicators that Kerry's liberalism, when he is present for votes, matches or even exceeds Kennedy's and those of other liberal icons in the Senate. For example, Kerry has earned a lifetime rating of 93 from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, which selects key votes each year and rates lawmakers according to a perfect liberal score of 100. Kerry's rating puts him in league with Kennedy, whose lifetime score is a slightly less-liberal 88, and other liberals like Vermont's Patrick Leahy, with 93, and California's Barbara Boxer, with 96.
Viewed from the other side of the ideological divide, Kerry has a lifetime rating of six from the conservative American Conservative Union, which uses a similar methodology to rate lawmakers according to a perfect conservative score of 100. Kerry's rating is the same as Leahy's and New York's Charles Schumer's, although it is slightly less liberal than Kennedy's lifetime rating of three.
On the issue of showing up for Senate votes, CQ found that Kerry's fellow senators running for president, John Edwards and Joseph Lieberman, also missed a significant number of votes, although far fewer than Kerry did. According to the CQ analysis, Edwards was present for 53 percent of the recorded votes in which the president took a position, while Lieberman was present for 45 percent.
Most senators were present for more than 90 percent of the votes.
I comprehend that statement as an admission that George W. Bush is much bigger than they are. I can't help remembering when all these democrats were claiming George W. Bush was a lightweight and would always have a cloud of illegitimacy hanging over him. Now look at them, they're drawing straws to see who has what it takes to stand up to him. :-)
Not for long, Johnny...not for long.
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