McCain's New Campaign Ad Gaffe

I want to challenge the point that McCain is a Maverick, ie that by voting against Bush 10% of the time, that makes him some kind of special guy because he 'only' voted with Bush 90% of the time. Let's look at the facts shall we. GQ politics have compiled comprehensive tables showing how house and senate members, both Dem and Rep, voted in the last 8 years. There are two key columns, one is 'President support' which indicates how often that member voted for what Bush wanted (here McCain's rating is 90%, ie he voted for Bush 90% of the time). The other column is 'Party Unity', which means how often that member voted along the congressional party line in the House or Senate. Here McCain's Party Unity score is 81%, ie he voted along the congressional senate party unity line 81% of the time. Now let us look at the records of several other Republican senators. PS means presidential support, PU means party unity: Norm Coleman - PS 78%, PU 79% Susan Collins - PS 77%, PU 64% Gordon Smith - PS 81%, PU 77% Olympia Snowe - PS 73%, PU 59% Arlen Specter, PS 79%, PU 66% Indeed there are a good several number of other Republican Senators who have voted for George Bush (PS) less than 90% of the time (Mel Martinez, John Thune and Lisa Murkowski in particular whose PS is in the low 80s though there are others whose PS is in the high 80s) but whose vote along congressional Senate party lines is more loyal than McCain's which I have not included here. Clearly therefore, we can see that there are 5 Republican US Senators who have voting records along Bush lines and Congressional Senate party lines who are more maverik than McCain's, in particular the three senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter who are worthy of note and can really claim the mantle 'maverik'. We know that McCain is being compared to George Bush III or McBush. Thinking about Bush, if we only analyse the 'Presidential support' score in this table, then the situation is even worse for McCain. Here, we see that 25 - yes 25 - Republican US senators voted with George Bush less than 90% of the time. So the Republicans have 49 Senators, 23 have voted alongside Bush more often than McCain and 25 have voted alongside Bush less often than McCain. So McCain is slap bang in the middle as far as US Republican Senators go in terms of loyalty to what President Bush wanted over the last 8 years. I think that McCain was a genuine maverick in the Clinton years and in the early 2000s. However, over the last few years, that has clearly changed. I think McCain concluded, that if he wanted to secure the Republican nomination in future, he would have to toe the party line more often, and in particular he would have to provide unstinting support to Bush in order to win over the many Republicans that had doubts about him. This therefore explains his policy reversals over the last few years (on the 2001 tax cuts, on immigration, on torture to mention but a few). So he is trying to cash in on his previously maverick image to try to persuade voters that he will not be like Bush, but yet we see that he is a solidly loyal republican, middle of the road, who has voted alongside Bush loyally with the rest of the Republican Senators over the last 8 years. I'm going to start a discussion about this, because I think it is important that people know where McCain really stands

Here is my issue, I want to state it clearly so it will not be twisted. McCain said, after years in DC as a "Maverick" that DC was a mess. McCain mocked the Democrats for wanting "changed". NOW, McCain is saying that he wants "change" every time he opens his mouth. McCain is saying he "fought his party and won" despite the fact that in the last 8 years he went with his party and supported his party. THAT IS MY ISSUE HERE, my only issue here. He is the one that is touting that he can make change and had every opportunity to make it, he is the one that mocked the Democrats about their use of the "change" concept. Now HE is the one who is using what he mocked as his montra, and lying to say that he has been an and will be the Harbinger of Change. Since I specifically said in my thread post that I was speaking about the last eight years, let me say that during those years, until the last, it was a Republican Congress running the country as well as a Republican President (who now won't let Congress get anything done). This information should ease your mind and help you back out of this concern. Thank you for asking and allowing me to elaborate.