The Great Divider

I'm going to shed some light on an issue that's been bothering me for some time.

Barack Obama is billing himself as a bipartisan candidate. He is advertising himself as someone who will transcend the traditional party divide in Congress and work with both Democrats and Republicans. Sadly, there is no basis for believing this, and to make matters worse history tells us the exact opposite of that which he would have us believe. Contrary to what his campaigners (and the teeming masses that have fallen prey to Obamania) would tell you, Barack Obama is one of the most divisive people in the U.S. Senate.

The National Journal ranked Obama as the Senate's most liberal member in 2007. While this may seem like the highest of accolades to the typical snobby elitist San Franciscan, think (for once) about what this infers: Obama was most likely to vote along the Democratic Party line and was least likely to consider voting favorably with Republicans. Obama's voting record (gauged over 66 votes) gave him a composite liberal index of 95.5. If you compare this to his few previous years in the Senate, you will see that over time he veers further towards the left. He has an average lifetime rating of 88.0. All this data can be found here.

Forget the fact that Obama has never authored a single important piece of legislation. He simply can't break the political divide between Democrats and Republicans on any issue by voting in the opposite direction, or even by working with Republicans on important legislation. He has no history in Congress as a unifier of any kind. I posit that he (along with whomever was rated as the least liberal senator) is the most divisive person in the Senate because of this. He is one of the least likely people to serve as a mediator between the two parties.

The truly amazing thing about the situation is that the person possibly best described as a bipartisan uniter is Obama's opponent: John McCain. Unfortunately, McCain missed more than half the key votes in the economic and foreign policy categories that determined his liberal rating, but on social issues (like immigration) he scored a 59, towards the middle of the pack. I think his lack of votes (due to campaigning) speaks volumes about him, but there are plenty of more important reasons to be disappointed with McCain (and which shall be discussed in a future blog post). In any case, at the very least we have some indicator about McCain's stance on things, and that leads us to believe that he is unconcerned with partisan politics and more concerned with enacting positive legislation. A rating of 59 puts him in the middle, right where a uniter ought to be, not too far towards the left or the right.

More important than his 2007 voting record, though, are the extreme examples of bipartisanship McCain has shown throughout his 20+ years in the Senate. He's co-authored legislation on immigration reform with Ted Kennedy, easily one of the Senate's most left-wing members. He's written campaign finance reform laws with Russ Feingold, another Democrat. McCain was also part of the Gang of Fourteen in 2005, the seven Democrats and seven Republicans that broke the deadlock on confirming Supreme Court appointees. He's even authored climate change bills with Joe Lieberman to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions (this bill was eventually defeated in the Senate). Simply scrolling through McCain's Wikipedia entry can reveal how often he's worked with Democrats on various important issues.

It's hard to fathom how the public has been hoodwinked into this idea of "Obama the Uniter" in light of all this evidence. It's a testament to the effectiveness of the Obama campaign that the public remains blind to this issue. So who is the real uniter here? In my opinion, Obama's move to the center in this election can't discount his history of partisan politics that stymies efforts towards progress. This is especially important in a Congress nearly equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.

If being a uniter were your only criterion for selecting a president, Barack Obama is clearly not the right choice.