|
Kerry miss votes Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/028/nation/On_trail_of_likely_voters_Kerry_others_are_likely_to_miss_votes+.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/028/nation/On_trail_of_likely_voters_Kerry_others_are_likely_to_miss_votes+.shtml
On trail of likely voters, Kerry, others are likely to miss votes
By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff, 1/28/2003
WASHINGTON - Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign is off and running, but the effort has not come without a blot on his official voting record.
Since being sworn into his fourth term on Jan. 7, the Massachusetts Democrat has missed more than half of the roll call votes in the US Senate, 15 out of 28. The figure is more than 10 percent of all the votes he had missed in the preceding 18 years of his Senate career, in which he established a voting participation rate of 97.9 percent.
Five of the votes Kerry missed this month were held when he was in Florida attending a campaign fund-raiser. Four were when he was in Boston, preparing for a visit to Iowa. Two came the next day, when he was in Des Moines, building a team for next year's Iowa caucuses, the lead voting event in the presidential campaign. One was held last week when he was entertaining mayors from across the nation at his home here in Georgetown, an event he left early because he had only nine minutes to race across town to the Capitol to avoid missing more votes.
''Because my voting record is going to stink over the next year, I need to buy some insurance,'' the senator said apologetically to the crowd before he dashed out the back door.
Kerry is not alone in walking a tightrope between his congressional responsibilities and his presidential aspirations. The two other Democratic senators running for president, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and John Edwards of North Carolina, have missed 11 and five votes, respectively. Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the lone House member running for president, as of yesterday afternoon had missed two votes out of 12 over two brief days of voting this session. The missed votes came within a half-hour of each other.
Each of the candidates concedes he will probably miss more over the coming year.
''It's an unfortunate truth that the requirements of travel in a presidential campaign often conflict with the Senate schedule,'' said Kerry's campaign manager, Jim Jordan.
He added, referring to Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, ''Senator Kerry has assured Senator Daschle and other members of the leadership that he will be present on any occasion when his vote is the swing on an important matter.''
Entering this year, Kerry had been eligible to cast 6,287 votes during his Senate career. He missed 132, according to the partisan Democratic Policy Committee.
Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein said: ''This is just one of the difficulties you have to face and deal with when you're running for president.''
Lieberman was perhaps in a bigger predicament in 2000, when he was up for reelection at the same time Al Gore chose him for a vice presidential running mate, ''and what he said then was that he was just going to have to work twice as hard to make sure the people are represented and he's doing the job for them,'' Gerstein said.
The other two candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, former Vermont governor Howard Dean and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York activist, do not currently hold elective positions.
Serving in Congress is a risk-laden advantage for presidential candidates. It can give them national exposure and authority when speaking on policy matters. At the same time, members of the House and Senate must weigh the costs and benefits of tending to their congressional responsibilities as they get deeper into a presidential campaign.
The votes Kerry missed ranged in importance. The first was the first roll call of the year, a motion to adjourn at 5:09 p.m. on Jan. 7. A spokesman said the senator had a long-scheduled personal and family matter. Other votes were on Democratic proposals to add spending for homeland security and for education funding.
Public interest groups believe that compounding official duties with campaign responsibilities can harm what is supposed to be a representative form of government.
''The fact that this far in advance of the election it requires candidates to spend so much time running for office is a real problem. Part of that time is campaigning, but frankly a lot of that time is fund-raising,'' said Don Simon, acting president of Common Cause. ''Those demands, in terms of both the lead time and the fund-raising requirement, work to detract from the ability of candidates to fulfill their other obligations.''
Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
This story ran on page A3 of the Boston Globe on 1/28/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
|
|
