How do the Candidates Vote?

http://www.votesmart.org/index.htm

There has been a lot of criticism of Obama's habit of voting "present", essentially refusing to take a stand, on certain issues. This is certainly troubling to a lot of people, and it should be. My friends who supported Clinton pointed it out a lot and now the McCain campaign is doing the same. And they probably should. Bowing out because your voting record could cost you points later is certainly a weak response all around, and I would rather have a candidate that is willing to stand up and take an unpopular position.

That said, I thought I would take a look to see how often Obama has voted present (not voted) rather than taking a stand. And yes, he does vote present pretty often. But then I wondered how that compared to McCain. Well, lo and behold, he does it pretty often as well. I found this interesting and thought I would do a little more research into it. What strikes me immediately are two things. First, Obama doesn't vote when the margin of win or loss is large. This basically tells me he is being strategic (if not a bit lame) and side stepping votes that might show up in a negative campaign ad. Both candidates also seem to avoid voting on particular issues. McCain apaprently avoids voting on Energy Policy issues whenever possible. Obama skips a lot of these as well, but not nearly as often. Obama seems more likely to avoid voting on tax and budget issues.

Admittedly, I haven't done too much in depth research, so I would be interested if anyone finds some real patterns beyond the brief couple that jumped out at me. The point is, though, voting present seems to be pretty common, so I am not sure if Obama is too far outside the flock on that one. The website above has an extensive list of votes (for the past 10 years or so) as well as grades from various interest groups.