Posted on 10/10/2008 8:32:34 PM PDT by BGHater
After months of watching Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama try their best to undermine each other's presidential candidacies, you would think they would have a hard time agreeing on the time of day.
Certainly, they and their campaigns would have you believe that the "fundamental differences" – how many times have we heard those words of late? – between them are so great that it's astounding they can occupy the same stage without repelling themselves to the opposite corners like giant magnets.
Well, think again.
A recent examination by Thomas Voting Reports Inc. of nearly two-dozen key Senate votes during the past four years reveals that their voting records are closer than they would have you believe.
Consider: On 19 major votes identified by the congressional vote-tracking firm in which both McCain and Obama voted, they were in lockstep on 12 of them – an agreement rate of 63 percent.
Here's a breakdown of those dozen between 2005-08:
• Voted in favor of a class-action suit bill to shift most big suits from state to federal courts. (2005)
• Voted to keep $36 million in a war-funding bill to build a military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (2005)
• Voted to require the military to adhere to international prohibitions against torture and the Army Field Manual rules for the proper treatment of prisoners. (2005)
• Voted to oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (2005)
• Voted to make most provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act permanent. (2006)
• Voted for an immigration reform bill that would secure the borders, set up a new guest-worker program, establish English as the national language and give most undocumented residents legal status on a lengthy road to citizenship. (2006)
• Voted against a proposed constitutional amendment that defined marriage as the "union of a man and a woman." (2006) Voted to extend federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research beyond the limits set by the Bush administration in 2001. (2006)
• Voted to build a 700-mile security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. (2006)
• Voted to establish an Office of Public Integrity to investigate ethics complaints against senators and staff. (2007)
• Voted against stripping an immigration bill of language that would give illegal immigrants legal status if they paid heavy fines, cleared criminal checks and met other conditions. (2007)
• Voted to ban earmarks from the fiscal 2009 budget. (2008)
Conversely, the two candidates disagreed on bills related to veterans' care, gun immunity, tax cuts, sex education, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, tobacco taxes and withdrawing troops from Iraq.
While both candidates have modified some of those positions in the ensuing years – McCain on veterans' health-care funding and the Bush tax cuts; Obama on Guantanamo Bay and offshore oil drilling – the side-by-side voting records are instructive.
Of course, none of this is intended to suggest that there aren't significant differences between the two candidates on the important issues facing our nation. There are.
Just be aware that there are quite a few similarities as well, even if both candidates are loath to admit it.
KEY POINTS
BACKGROUND: Presidential candidates Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are presenting themselves to voters as virtual polar opposites.
CONCLUSION: But an examination of their voting records over the past four years suggests otherwise.
Obama comes from a Marxist revolutionary background. McCain comes from a conservative/military background.
Obama has taken some moderate stands in his 2 1/2 years in the Senate in preparation for a presidential run. McCain has taken some leftist stands for inexplicable reasons.
But this does not mean that they do not represent “polar opposites.”
One loves this Country and one hates it!
I'm gonna bookmark this little thread for bringin up later, even if he wins, to remind everybody of why I've been sayin he'll do the same thing to us nationally that Schwartzenegger's been doin to Republican conservatives in CA after the election!!!
“But this does not mean that they do not represent ‘polar opposites.’”
They only represent polar opposites in the sense that conservatives have no choice but to place their hopes and dreams inside McCain. McCain the man is one thing, but as far as McCain the politician goes, there’s a reason he was, for eight long years, the MSM’s favorite Republican.
I’m beginning to wonder whether or not ACORN rigged the Republican primary too....
I think that is a very prescient comment.
A lot of us were stunned when McCain surged ahead suddenly in the primaries. It was almost too artificial.
When I first saw where this report came from, I honestly thought it said “ Nausea Telegraph”! Too much reading for me tonight!
I made the comment as a half joke. But seriously though, I've never seen such an ineffective presidential candidate as McCain. Having said that, I am relatively young and don't remember Dukakis, and wasn't paying attention when Dole was running. I just can't imagine how McCain could have possibly won the primary. Any of the other candidates would be doing SO much better right now to fight through this and take on Hussein.
What kills me is that we are 25 days out. Hussein hasn't been defined the way he should have been during the summer. The economy is going to hell, and the democrats could easily be tied to it. It's as if McCain is just standing there watching it all happen while the people behind him want to go to battle to win...
Yep.
If McCain can’t even fight Obama, who’s to say that he will fight Islamists and terrorists?
No doubt, McCain is the chosen sacrifice for the GOP.
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