(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

[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.

;)