(no subject)

[geekchick]

Silliest thing I've read on the internets all day (although to be fair, I haven't perused stupid_free yet): "VOTE McCAIN by default for the sake of women's rights."

You mean the John McCain who promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will work to overturn Roe v. Wade (although he claimed to be opposed to overturning it before he was for it) and who has a whopping 0% rating from NARAL, opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to counteract a Supreme Court decision limiting how long workers can wait before suing for pay discrimination, because it would lead to more lawsuits, and "voted NO on legislation to extend the Title X federal family planning program, which provides low-income and uninsured women and families with health care services ranging from breast and cervical cancer screening to birth control". Yeah, he's all about the women's rights.

The poster was making out to be a disgruntled Clinton supporter, but I think I'm going to go with "possibly Republican troll" instead since I've seen this exact same comment in a couple different places.

[Edit:] No, wait, I think we've got another contender!

Roe v. Wade is an amendment that once largely benefited young, middle, upper middle and upper class college women who found themselves pregnant. By middle age, "accidental" pregnancies are rare to unheard of and should they occur, they're usually welcome. By the time a woman reaches her 50s, Roe v. Wade has no personal relevance.
[...] Besides, there are too many legitimate physicians with access to the best of equipment who would probably offer the service at an exorbitant price should Roe bite the proverbial dust.

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

OMFG. Where does that quote come from?

[geekchick]

They're both from the comments section over on a Marc Ambinder post. For the Roe v. Wade quote, look for "haviland smith".

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Eagh.

The above, though, was beautifully done. Permission to blockquote (not that I know when next I'll be posting, but the info deserves wide distribution)

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

So why has Barack Obama failed to vote on 3 out of 4 abortion-related bills that have come up in his time in the Senate? 2 out of 3 women's issues bills? 4/7 welfare and poverty issues, which largely affect women and children?

McCain sucks as a defender of women's rights. Obama just can't be arsed. Neither one of them is looking too great here.

[geekchick]

I firmly believe that if one claims to be 1) a Democrat and 2) all about the women's rights, tossing your vote to McCain in a fit of pique that your preferred candidate didn't win the nomination (which is what this poster is pretty much saying she's going to do, assuming it really is a Clinton supporter and not just a troll) is kind of stupid and cutting off your nose to spite your face. On actual issues, if someone liked Clinton's platform I have no idea how they can justify voting for McCain instead. If someone doesn't think they can in good conscience vote for Obama, then don't. Just don't claim that voting for McCain instead is in any way some sort of noble crusade in favor of women's rights, given that he'll be more than happy to take the opportunity to set them back if he can.

And yeah, I have just as much respect for the people who were shouting "if Obama doesn't win, I'm going to vote for McCain neener neener neener" as I do for the "since Clinton didn't win, I'm voting for McCain" folks.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

This is actually just part of my "tell me why your candidate doesn't suck, not why the other one does" campaign... the original commenter was pretty fucking stupid, and there's no way in hell anyone could justify a single-issue vote for McCain on women's rights. Oi.

[asetwoman.livejournal.com]

there's no way in hell anyone could justify a single-issue vote for McCain on women's rights

Well, not unless they are insane, justifying their insanity to other insane people. Then it's just one huge Festival of Illogic.

[geekchick]

This is actually just part of my "tell me why your candidate doesn't suck, not why the other one does" campaign.

C'mon, that's crazy talk! ;) I didn't actually mean for this to be a "VOTE OBAMA RAH RAH RAH" post, more of a "Your logic does not resemble our earth logic o_O" observation. I only mentioned the Clinton supporter thing because that's the context in which the OP was framing her argument, such as it is. I, er, don't think that it follows that because Clinton didn't win the nomination, our daughters have now lost equal rights in the workplace.


Reminds me tangentially I'd meant to post about how I thought Clinton was pretty classy with her speech over the weekend. I've not liked a bunch of stuff about her campaign, but I think she went out on a high note.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Illogic? On my internets? ;)

[geekchick]

Inorite?

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Everything that you said. (nods)

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Not to dispute his voting history, but for the record here, Obama has a 100% rating from NARAL:

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/statements/obama.html

Can you provide pointers to the 3 women's issues bills and 7 welfare/poverty bills in question?

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

votesmart.org, the site won't let me deep link effectively, sorry.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting.

The women's issues votes in question (the ones he didn't vote on):

• Inclusion of Consolidated Appropriations (HR 2764)
  
  Passed 76 to 17. I'd give him (or anyone) a pass on this: legislators miss votes all the time (if for no other reason than that you have to spend time in your home district now and then), and there was obviously no danger of this bill failing.



• Prohibiting Funds for Groups that Perform Abortions (S Amdt 3330 to S Amdt 3325 to HR 3043)
  
  Rejected 52-41. This appears to have been a straight party-line vote, so the outcome was never in doubt, but both Obama and Clinton were not recorded. (Ditto Biden, Kennedy, Dodd and a few others.) As a personal matter, I'd prefer to have every single Dem show up and vote nay on this kind of odious crap anyway, and I can't find any statements from either the Obama or Clinton campaign mentioning their non-attendance.

The welfare/poverty votes that he missed:

• Appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (HR 3043)
  
  Passed 56-37. Another slam-dunk, Clinton and Obama both absent.



• Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007 (CHIP) (HR 3963)
  
  Passed 64-30. Again, Clinton and Obama both not voting. Vetoed by Bush, override failed in the house.



• Appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (HR 3043)
  
  Passed 75-19. Clinton and Obama both not voting.



• State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization (HR 976)
  
  Passed 68-31. For once, Clinton in attendance. :) (Vetoed by the preznit, override failed in the house.)

Soooo....

At least based on the bills that VoteSmart is tracking, I think it's a stretch to say based on those votes that Obama "can't be arsed" to defend women's rights. The only one I'd personally give him grief over is the Vitter amendment, and that's largely on stylistic grounds.

Given the recurring names in the "not voting" bloc on each of those bills, I think what we're actually seeing here is a pattern of all of the initially viable presidential candidates (Clinton, Dodd, Biden, Obama, etc) choosing to prioritize campaigning and constituent service over being in DC for entirely symbolic votes. That's not an ideal situation, but it's a pretty defensible one.

YMMV, of course.

(edited to make that heap of links a little more parseable)

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I don't care how Clinton voted; it's not her record of defending women's rights that's relevant at this stage. However, I'd like to dispute that "senators miss votes all the time"; for example, check out Vermont rep Bernie Sanders record. He's missed six key votes as tracked by votesmart since 1994 (I believe, I'm not going to look it up cuz I'm on a deadline so am going on a few weeks old recollection here.) I'm also not the least bit convinced that missing substantial numbers of votes for campaigning is defensible, and Obama's record of missing votes is persistent. Politicians are good at talking. It's what they do. That means that their position statements mean dick to me, and it's how they've actually voted that counts. Obama simply doesn't have the voting record to back up his position statements at this point, and that makes me quite, quite leery of supporting him.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

I don't care how Clinton voted; it's not her record of defending women's rights that's relevant at this stage.

To be clear: I was providing her attendance for context: if a politician who is largely acknowledged to be an excellent defender of women's rights skips the vote, that's useful context for evaluating any other senator's attendance. Or at least it is for me.

Bernie Sanders...

...has a similar lifetime attendance record to Kennedy and Hatch, below, at 4%. Which is pretty consistent with the observation that running for president tends to put a cramp in your attendance numbers. :)

...He's missed six key votes as tracked by votesmart since 1994

Pretty obviously here, I have some quibbles with votesmart's definition of a key vote, at least as far as evaluating an "NV" goes. Few to no bills come to a vote in either the house or the senate without the party whips having a close-to-accurate count of their votes (both direction and attendance) ahead of time. If a legislator needs to be somewhere else and both the whip and the majority leader are okay with that (and as far as I know, surprise non-attendance is practically unknown), it's not IMHO anything to lose sleep over, at least for bills where it's victory that's assured. (I'd be much more annoyed if Obama or any of the other D candidates had failed to show up for a party-line vote where the Democrats lost, but that does not appear to have happened.)

Obama's record of missing votes is persistent.

Well, see the graphs below. Obama's attendance record hovered around 2% on average until the presidential campaign started, and all of the other candidates' numbers track similarly versus the non-candidates. Moreover, as the most junior of the Senators in the race, his "persistent" record of nonvoting is largely a statistical artifact: most other senators have better attendance records on "key" votes (and votes in general) because they've had more of them to attend.

Obama simply doesn't have the voting record to back up his position statements at this point

I'll happily concede that Obama's voting record is short, because it is, and that that's a good reason to be wary of him or any other candidate. (It's why Richardson was my first choice of the Democratic field -- oh well.) I'm only suggesting that evaluating an "NV" as a "doesn't care" or "can't be bothered" isn't well-supported by the facts, especially in the case of the bills that votesmart is highlighting.

Obviously, YMMV.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to have ot agree to disagree on this one, clearly.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Only the portion of the world that is more impressed by words than actions. How's that Kool-aid taste?

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

No really you are losing the argument. The evidence does not back up your position and Dr Memory handed you your rhetorical ass.

The only point you've made that isn't disputed is that you are leery of supporting Obama. But given the flimsiness of the reasons you have given, Occam implies that your real reasons for opposing Obama are as yet unstated.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

You know, I've typed out and erased a dozen comments at this point, and none of them are quite able to reflect the fact that this is someone else's journal and the manners that requires. I didn't argue my point particularly hard because I respect geekchick, whose journal this is, and dr_memory, whom I have found to be sensible and generally thoughtful even in cases where, as now, I do not share his opinion. Also, frankly, it was late and I tire of beating my head against a brick wall. Nathan believes that a run for president is an allowable reason for missing significant votes. I do not. We were both happy to leave it at that.

The person commenting above you is clearly a troll, but you presumptively are not. So perhaps you should reflect on your motivation for making this comment, rather than my reasons for not supporting Obama.

(frozen)

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

Either you are being dishonest or you are naively stupid. Your expression of concern for my motivations for shooting fish in a barrel gives more weight to the former.

(frozen)

[geekchick]

Okay, enough please.

[geekchick]

Back under the bridge with you, bub.

[dionysia.livejournal.com]

You are good.

;)

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Some interesting contextual numbers:

Obama's lifetime Senate vote attendance record (21% total missed)

Clinton's lifetime Senate vote attendance record (9% total missed)

John McCain's Senate vote attendance record since 1993 (17% total missed)

Edward Kennedy's Senate vote attendance record since 1993 (5% total missed)

John Kerry's Senate vote attendance record since 1993 (14% total missed)

Orrin Hatch's Senate vote attendance record since 1993 (2% total missed)

Looking at both the charts and the absolute numbers, I'd draw the following conclusions:

- running for president is bad for your attendance

- running for president early in your career is really bad for your attendance

- when not running for president, the missed-vote rate for just about everyone is less than 10%

- it's not 1776 any more, why on earth can't senators call or fax in their votes? sheesh.

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Teleconference, even. I know we could build a secure remote voting system if only we gave it as much thought as keeping the terrists off buses.

Also, I'm pretty sure Orrin Hatch has been dead for the last several years and they've just lifted his arm for him with a string.

[geekchick]

Also, I'm pretty sure Orrin Hatch has been dead for the last several years and they've just lifted his arm for him with a string.

Maybe we could get him on a ticket with Zombie Nixon.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

At 5:40PM today, I was #157 in my precinct (of tens of thousands) for the senatorial primary.

...dudes, if you don't vote, people who DO vote might elect shitheads. It happened a lot in 1999, in 2001, and in 2003, and some in 2005. Like the TV commercial says: WAKE UP, PEOPLE.

[geekchick]

From the Post:

At the Fair Oaks precinct of central Fairfax, 32 ballots had been cast when polls closed at 7 p.m. Fewer than 6 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the primary.

That's not my polling place, but damn.

I actually didn't get home in time to vote yesterday, but I didn't have a real good sense of whether I wanted to vote for Connolly or Byrne anyway; leaning slightly towards Byrne, but I think Connolly's got a better chance of picking up the open seat in November. Seems either way it seems I wasn't much needed, as Connolly won by 25 points.

[gsh]

I didn't vote in the primary. *blush*