Working across the partisan divide

One of Obama's major claims is that he is the one who can work together with those of the other party. He's Senator Purple who can bridge the divide. However, a perusal of his campaign website reveals rather typical liberal stands on public policy. In the 110th Congress he has voted with the Democratic Party 94.6% of the time. Admittedly, that is a lower percent than Hillary Clinton who voted with her party 97.1% of the time. But perhaps the numbers would be a bit different if Obama had been there for more of the votes. Since this Congress began a year ago, he's missed over a third of the votes (37.6%) while Clinton has missed less than a fourth (23.3%). But looking at their voting records, it's difficult to discern that either of them has demonstrated much of an ability to work across the partisan divide. To do that, one would need to sometimes work for policies that one's base disapproves and there is no evidence that either Obama or Clinton is willing to do that at all.

If voters truly wanted someone with a history of working with those across the aisle, why not vote for the guy who's been ticking off members of his own party for years by working with the other party? Not only does John McCain have a lower percentage of votes that went along with his own party (87.7%), but he's done it on bigger issues. He's made a profession of working with Democrats on major issues that were unpopular with his fellow Republicans from campaign finance reform, immigration, global warming, to the Gang of 14, a bipartisan group that Obama somehow neglected to join. It's just such a personal political history that has caused McCain difficulties in his own race for the nomination. It's why I would prefer someone else to be the Republican nominee.

Back in early October (oh, how long ago that seems!) when Rudy was still leading the national polls and there was talk about Christian conservatives breaking away and running a third party candidate who represented their values, I pointed out that there really was someone in the Republican race whom they could rally around, Mike Huckabee, and rather than marginalizing themselves they should support him. I feel the same way about all these voters who are supposedly craving for a candidate who can walk some supposed third path between the parties. Whether that dream candidate is Mayor Bloomberg or Barack Obama, you're still talking about a liberal espousing liberal policies and just mouthing platitudes about working with the other party.

With all this talk the American people being sick of partisanship and wanting a president who can be a change agent by working together with everyone, why vote for a candidate like Obama or Clinton who has very little history of actually having done so at the national level when John McCain has been doing it for years?