Obama needs to do the job that he was elected to do (Senator) for at least one term before he goes off trying to pursue higher offices. It's only fair to the people of Illinois and the nation.

Where's Hillary"` In Rite Aid!!!
people here in Calif.
They have a talking Hillary Clinton doll its so adorable ,$14.99 its on sale, you ought to see the collectors out,Geez didnt know there were so many to collect Hillary.

wow. what an unfulfilling post.

seriously. so a POOR decision in judgement (kyl/lieberman)by hillary
is somehow better than a no-show by Obama? even though he stated, clearly, before the resolution was on the floor, that he opposed it.

hardly.

i wish a clinton fan had anything other that blatant rhetoric or regurgitating talking points to offer to the table.

And true enough it doesn't. This guy doesn't even do his present job at the Senate, but wants to change the world. Hello Obama, you're a US Senator. That's a powerful post to bring change. Why don't you start bringing change now?

The trouble is, Obama is like a loser-magnet. He attracts all kinds of malcontents, with his wishy-washy message that means everything and nothing at the same time.

Look through some of the Obama groupie messages on this board and you will find a pop-idol type of adulation. Unthinking, uncritical, and patently unrealistic.

Obama groupies – please grow up and understand how the real world works. This is not a DIPAK CHOPRA book where you can lose yourself with vague banalities.

Sigh....

P.S. To those who insist that it was Reid's fault for supposedly not giving him enough warning on the vote because his son works for the Hillary campaign, I ask: Does Reid have 3 other sons who work for McCain, Dodd and Biden?"

John McCain missed the vote on Iran.

Posted By Dave. Queens NY : November 3, 2007 4:18 pm

I double checked and you're right. I stand corrected!

Although my point remains just as valid, the other 3 senators were there to cast their vote. I find it disingenuous for the Obama campaign to allege that Reid didn't give him enough notice of the upcoming vote.

I meant "faring well" in terms of his attendance record in the Senate. If Hillary Clinton's attendance is great (83%) then Barack Obama's is good (67%), John McCain's is pretty bad (48%) and John Kerry, the previous Democratic nominee, was very bad (8%).

Every Senator shifts focus away from their duties in congress to run for President, which is too bad but a fact of life. Luckily, by way of historical comparison, Obama is doing a better job attendance-wise than most. His attendance record is not a knock against him, it's just the opposite.

You do KNOW that your guy leads NOWHERE, never has, right? It isn't Clinton supporters who're wishing and hoping, claiming polls don't matter, CROWDS do, or tossing out last-ditch, death-spiral strategies like the Obama and Edwards' camps.
Remember what I told you Urine, there will be a shake-up in the BO camp before Dec. 1st, and a raft of defections.
As Michael Ray Richardson said about the Knicks, those many years ago,

"The ship be sinkin'"

Except that he's missed TWICE as many votes as Clinton and he's TWENTY points behind.
He's doing equally well in funds. Never has anyone raised so much money to be so far behind. He has never been above 27% in any national and hasn't seen 25% in a while.
He will have a chance to have a perfect attendance record in the senate as he completes his term and we should all wish him good luck and good health in that endeavor...

Interesting link you posted there, and it shows Obama missed the 5 most recent votes (3 of which were essentially procedural cloture votes) between Oct 30th and November 1st. I checked out Hillary's voting record on those same 5 votes, and Hillary missed 4 of them.

Funny how you failed to point that out...I'm glad to help. Also interesting is that Obama is rated as more moderate than Hillary, who is described as a "radical".

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=300022

Obama 2008!!!!!!!!!!

You ran the story on how trivial many of the matters before Congress today really are, CNN. Why fault a presidential candidate who skips out on them?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2007/10/31/crowley.why.people.hate.congress.cnn?iref=videosearch

See above. So far this campaign, McCain has missed 52% of his votes (including the vote on Kyl-Lieberman), about 60% more than Obama.

In comparison to Senators running in recent political history, Obama fares well.

P.S. To those who insist that it was Reid's fault for supposedly not giving him enough warning on the vote because his son works for the Hillary campaign, I ask: Does Reid have 3 other sons who work for McCain, Dodd and Biden?"

John McCain missed the vote on Iran.

PRICELESS!!!

Include those statistics in there, and of all seven Senators to run for President in the past two election cycles, Barack Obama has the 2nd best record.

Kerry: 91.9%
Edwards: 60%
McCain: 52.6%
Biden: 34.7%
Dodd: 33.3%
Obama: 33%
Clinton: 17.4%

The previous Democratic nominee for President was absent three times as often in his cycle up to this point than Barack Obama has been.

Missing votes is an inevitability of any presidential campaign, it can't be avoided. Hillary Clinton deserves praise for her good attendance, but to smear Obama with these missed votes is to ignore the history of Senators running for president.

Even funnier that of the 5 "presidential" senators, the only one that did not cast a vote on Iran was Obama.

P.S. To those who insist that it was Reid's fault for supposedly not giving him enough warning on the vote because his son works for the Hillary campaign, I ask: Does Reid have 3 other sons who work for McCain, Dodd and Biden?

Here is a comment I copied from a different site and you guys do the thinking.

"He was lousy as a State Rep here in IL and is even worse as a Senator. He even voted to confirm Condi RIce as Sec of State, so that shows just how little judgment he really has."

That will explaine the reason why he did not vote for Iran issue. HA...

People comment a lot on Hillary's driver liscence issue a lot, including Hardball "round table" so called experts, intensionally missed to mention the last part which Obama, including Edwards, both totally agreed with Hillary on this issue, said same thing. HA .... Same bottle, different labels.

Here is another comment I copied

"Most of all, I have no respect to anyone who refuse to put his hand over his heart and say the pledge of Allegiance. If you love this country, you do as an American."

I couldn't agree more.

Edward ? Big joke. He should really give up his chance by now. If my leader spend $400 just for a haircut, I have no respect for that leader because he can not represent me. How many people here work the whole week to get that 400 dollar paycheck for the family ? How many parents try hard to save 400 dollars to pay their childrens tuitions, their parents nursing home fees, their houses.... Speechless. So please do not tell me you are ther for working middle class !

Last, I do not think Hillary play womens card, gender card. At our local Girls Incorporation, Girls Scouts, parents are encouraged to guide their daughters to be agressive and prepare to face today's chanllenge. If you have daughters that age, moms all understand how important for them to educate and guide their daughters to be tough and strong to face and deal with the society, deal with world. I can give you tons examples like this, female CEO, female lawyers, female world leaders, female soldiers.... If you have a daughter or you yourself are daughters, you will understand the meaning. Well, Edward use Elizabeth, Obama use his look, they all play that "card", so do not point that to Hillary. Anyway, she is a WOMAN !

I hope we all try to be a good listener first, listen to what they say, how they say it, do they do know 1,2,3, or just talk the talk, then do our homework, think well and think deep. We are here trying to choose a president, so please put our country first. Do not play tricks to each other, Dems and Reps. People are NOT stupid. They are well educated and informed. America has already lost big face and reputation in the world. We need to gain our respect back.

Someone said this before: How often in life that person never gets attention because he never looks like a prince. But when he talks, every one listen.

I checked your links, and it looks as though Obama has the second best record on missed votes of all the Senators currently running for President. That doesn't seem so bad to me.

Your facts are wrong. Senator McCain did not make the vote either.

I'm not sure how many times people need to post the transcript from the Senate Floor on the evening prior to the vote, but it said that the vote would be postponed indefinitely.

I'm sure some Senators did get notice. Harry Reid's son works for the Clinton campaign. Joe Biden had legislation that he was staying around to promote.

The record shows that the vote was called for at 12 noon on the day after it had been postponed indefinitely. The vote was completed by 12:44 pm.

This is inaccurate and biased reporting.

McCain: 52.6%
Biden: 34.7%
Dodd: 33.3%
Obama: 33%
Clinton: 17.4%

I'm sorry to burst your little bubble, but if you read the thread even YOU would be able to see how bad Obama's record is, whatever parameters you choose...

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/

Nothing in politics is more dangerous than the, "Cult of Personality", which your cloying, fawning, hero-worshiping posts exemplify.
Believing that your hero can do no wrong is a guarantee that he will...

You also noticed most of the post are from the Hilary camp. Hilary and his gang are like mafias, they are corrupt and want to win at any cost.

Hilary is freaking Joke and she is corrupt. How in the world did she turn $50,000 investment in the cattle futures into millions withins months.

You guys are stupid and sick.

Can change happen in this country? History is the witness, Jim. Slavery was ended when many believed not possible. Segregation ended same way. Blacks and women earned right to vote same way. When people called for those changes, many like you believed it was not possible. But people dared to dream and acted on those dreams and made great things possible in this country.

Obama is the new dream of 21st century. The new face America to the world, trnascending through the brick walls of race, religion, ethnicity, and geography and trying to make this country and the world a better place. You can be cynical about change and bad mouth about it. Or you can be a believer and be a part of the movement to make the change. Choice is your. Ofcourse some of us choose the latter.

Obama WAS present for the Kyl-leiberman Iranian guard vote, Harry Reid pulled it off the floor and said the vote would be delayed. Once Obama left for NH the next day Reid put it back on the floor 24 hours later. Reid's son, a Hillary supporter, was responsible for notifying Obama about the vote but only told him 1 hour before the vote after he left for NH.

The point is, when Hillary has a chance to make a decision she shows lack of judgment.

But any politician who doesn't attend 80% in senate for vote need to be punished. Why to pay public money who doesn't work.

SENATOR OBAMA SHAME ON YOU TAKING PUBLIC MONEY FOR NO WORK.

To address why Obama missed the Iran vote, I cut and paste information below provided by other bloggers, which seems credible.

–The record says:

'Mr. REID. Mr. Chairman, there will be no more votes tonight. We have tried to work something out on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and the Biden amendment. We have been unable to do that.

We have been very close a few times, but we have just been informed that Senator Biden will not have a vote anytime in the near future. There will not be a vote on the other one anytime in the near future. We hope tonight will bring more clearness on the issue.'

Presidential contenders have many out-of-town commitments. For those who are sitting senators, they change their campaign schedule when they do know an important vote is coming up but otherwise they will pursue their campaign plans."

–end record

That was on the Tuesday night on which the vote had been scheduled. Obama was there for it. After Reid's statement, he left for NH. Reid's office called him the next day in NH and told him the vote would be held in one hour. There was no way that he could fly back in an hour even on a private jet.

If Obama becomes President, missing 80% of the votes will be trivial because he will accomplished his mission and the mission of his supporters: to upset the politics of division and to have a brand new legacy in American politics.

He is currently representing a larger number of constituents than just his state, and I would guess that most Illinois voters don't mind.

Thanks for posting that essay.

You do realize, don't you, that there is only a microscopic percentage of Americans that get swayed by speeches that are carefully scripted to have a MLK type effect.

The rest of this country relies on good old American intuition that helps them spot fakes, flakes and posers.

Your Obama talks and talks but won't take a stand on anything. He won't even vote on stuff – that's his paid job in case someone forgot.

He's being naive to think he can change the world with sophomoric speeches.

And you would lose your house...

NewsFlash!- There are ACTUAL places where you can find out if you're talking through an alternate orifice, and you are here.
Imagine if you were looking to find out the truth rather than pull a CYA with some smarmy moral-relativism.

"Hillary Clinton has missed 70 votes (17.4%) during the current Congress"

"Barack Obama has missed 133 votes (33.0%) during the current Congress."

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/

Twice as much.

Now where's that DEED?

Because it's true.

"Sen. Barack Obama has missed more votes than another other Democrat running for the White House — nearly 80 percent since September."

He has been a senator for less than 3 years and has one of the poorest attendance records there;
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629

Having no record in the US senate, he runs on his record as a state legislator and two self-penned books in praise of himself.
Indeed he has devoted his entire short tenure in the senate to running for even higher office, before and without ever distinguishing himself in his current position.
What criteria would YOU propose we judge our candidates on? Certainly showing up to do your job is one metric that all reasonable people can agree on as each of us would have been fired long ago if we adopted senator Obama's caviler attitude to doing the job he applied for...