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AZ Republic: Mac No Maverick
In tight Senate votes, McCain not a maverick
When it matters the most, he seldom bucks his own party
Ronald J. Hansen
The Arizona Republic May. 7
Quote:
Over the years, Sen. John McCain has publicly condemned Republican Party leaders and occasionally voted against the GOP on selected issues.
But an Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.
The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.
The numbers are based on a review of Senate roll-call votes since 1999 that ended in a tie or were settled by one vote. The closest votes in that period included momentous, partisan-charged legislation, such as President Bush's tax cuts. More often, they were procedural votes on deal-breaking amendments to bills that would otherwise pass.
They partly reflect how rarely Senate votes come down to a single person, even though the chamber has been narrowly divided on party lines most of the past decade. But the votes also suggest that when McCain broke from Republicans, others often joined him, keeping the votes from being so close.
And his chronic absence in the Senate has seldom come in the most divided debates, the records show.
"Senator McCain puts the interests of Arizonans first and supports the principles of the Republican Party," said Crystal Benton, a spokeswoman for the campaign. "He also has the courage and the integrity to do what is right."
The voting pattern seems at odds with the popular narrative that McCain's maverick tendencies make him an unreliable conservative.
"He is a conservative who votes conservative on most issues," said Keith Poole, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego. "By no means is he a liberal or even a moderate."
Poole, who compiles a widely respected analysis of all Senate votes, ranks McCain as slightly less conservative than most Republicans throughout his career and near the far edge of the right while running for president.
During the 10 years The Republic examined, McCain crossed over to vote with Democrats 19 times in 82 close votes. He did so just once in the four years he was running for president: 1999, 2000, 2007 and 2008. All 12 of the close votes he missed happened in those years, too.
Even so, in 59 of the 82 close votes, Republicans got what they wanted regardless of McCain's position. In those 59 cases, McCain broke with his party 16 times.
John Fortier, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said McCain has earned the maverick label often hung on him, but it is primarily built on issues that received considerable attention, like campaign-finance reform or immigration.
"On most issues, he is broadly conservative," Fortier said. "He has a real streak of voting independently and sometimes makes a really big deal of it."
Others take issue with McCain's image as conservative gadfly.
A Washington Post analysis notes McCain voted with the GOP this term 88.3 percent of the time, the same as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., whose conservative credentials are seldom questioned. McCain ranked ahead of 29 other Republicans, including Arizona's Jon Kyl, who holds the No. 2 spot in party leadership.
Congressional Quarterly gave McCain a 90 percent score for "party unity" voting last year and said he supported the president's position on legislation 95 percent of the time. During the Bush years, McCain's poorest totals from CQ were 67 percent party-unity voting in 2001 and 77 percent support for the Bush agenda in 2005.
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In tight Senate votes, McCain not a maverick
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06-27-2008, 09:37 PM
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