John McSame

from Progressive Media
May 27, 2008
posted by Jason Rosenbaum

CQ’s Presidential Support studies try to determine how often a legislator votes in line with the President’s position:

CQ tries to determine what the president personally, as distinct from other administration officials, does and does not want in the way of legislative action. This is done by analyzing his messages to Congress, news conference remarks and other public statements and documents.

So, these studies only track votes when the President has an explicit, stated opinion on a bill.

According to CQ, Senator John McCain has voted with President Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% of the time in 2007:

Presidential Support
Year	Support	Oppose
2008 (through May 15, 2008)	100%	0%
2007	95%	5%
2006	89%	11%
2005	77%	23%
2004	92%	8%
2003	91%	9%
2002	90%	10%
2001	91%	9%

CQ’s Presidential Support numbers do not include votes that legislators miss - in other words, missing a vote on an issue Bush supported did not lower McCain’s score. Now, it is a well known fact that Senator McCain misses the most votes in the Senate. In fact, he was crowned the most absent Senator in 2008. Therefore, when John McCain even bothered to show up and vote in the Senate - which wasn’t often - he voted with Bush 100% of the time.

(Continued here.)