A few weeks ago, the Clinton campaign started going after Barack Obama on a series of “present” votes he cast while serving the state Senate. Clinton herself even emphasized the issue in speech in Iowa:
“Now, there’s been a lot of talk about yes or no answers to complex questions. But most people don’t know that for legislators who don’t want to take a stand, there’s a third way to vote. Not yes, not no, but ‘present’ – which is kind of like voting ‘maybe.’ Well, in the Illinois State Senate, on issue after issue, my opponent voted ‘present,’ instead of yes or no. […] A president can’t vote ‘present.’ A president can’t pick and choose which challenges he or she will face.”
It seemed like a possible new line of attack, but the Clinton campaign seemed to drop it pretty quickly. Today, the issue is apparently making a comeback.
The NYT has a lengthy report this morning, noting that Obama voted “present” about 3% of the time during his tenure, including on bills relating to crime and abortion rights. What’s more, while Hillary Clinton has dropped the charge from her stump speech, her campaign has clearly not dropped the issue altogether: “ABC News has learned that the [Clinton campaign] has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill…. Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org are domains hosted by the same IP address as official Clinton Web sites…. The Clinton campaign intends to use these new Web sites to paint Obama as cowardly.”
So, is there something to this? I looked into it a bit a few weeks ago, but found there’s probably less here than meets the eye.
This post, from Kate Sheppard, summarized the broader dynamic nicely.
This isn’t really new; it’s a recycled Republican talking point. In the state senate, Obama voted “present” on several abortion bills, a bill regarding firearms in a school zone, and one on concealed weapons. Obama says that on the abortion-related votes, he worked out an arrangement with abortion-rights advocates to get Democrats to vote “present” on bills if they feared a “no” would endanger their re-election. It seems like a cop-out, to be sure, but even the presidents of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council and the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence backed his decisions to vote present. But those points are pretty much moot, since in Illinois voting “present” is essentially the same as voting “no” — without having to go on the record as voting “no.” The Obama campaign has already fired back on their “Fact Check” site. […]
Going after Obama on the “present” votes, especially in places where his vote was advised by progressive advocates, is stooping pretty low for the Clinton campaign.
I probably wouldn’t go quite that far — the “present” votes are a legitimate point of interest — but I think Kate’s right that there’s just not much here in the way of controversy. Particularly on the votes regarding abortion rights, Obama’s position in the legislature was backed by the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council and Chicago NOW. If he was trying to take a cowardly “middle” path, that wouldn’t be the case.
This came up quite a bit during the 2004 Democratic Senate primary, in which Obama’s rivals accused him of “ducking issues,” but the Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn scrutinized the votes and, like Kate Sheppard, found that Obama was actually applying a progressive legislative strategy.
“Anyone who says that a ‘present’ vote necessarily reflects that someone is ducking an issue doesn’t understand the first thing about legislative strategy,” said Pam Sutherland, Planned Parenthood’s chief lobbyist in Springfield. “People who work down here and know how things get done are hearing these accusations and saying, ‘huh?'”
In practical terms, a “present” vote is as good as a “no” vote because the law requires a bill to win the votes of a majority of the lawmakers in either body, not simply a majority of those voting.
If “present” sounds wimpy, that’s because it sometimes is. In many cases, according to Paul Green, head of Roosevelt University’s School of Public Policy and a longtime student of Illinois’ byzantine legislative process, lawmakers who anticipate a tough re-election challenge will vote “present” on a controversial bill they oppose so as not to give their prospective opponents a good club to bash them with.
Obama, however, was in a safe district and never faced a serious challenge for his legislative seat. He had no need to shy from hard-line stands on gun control and abortion rights. He actually took such stands frequently and is now highly praised by advocates for both causes. Why would he then vote “present” instead of a resounding “no” on certain bills advanced by lawmakers opposed to abortion rights?
“To provide cover for other Democrats who were shaky on the issue in an effort to convince them not to vote ‘yes,'” Sutherland said. […]
“Criticizing Obama on the basis of ‘present’ votes indicates you don’t have a great understanding of the process,” said Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
Or you are willing to pretend you don’t to score cheap political points. There’s dirt here all right. It’s all over the hands of those pointing the finger.
Sounds like a non-issue. Obama’s made some foolish mistakes, but his “present” votes apparently aren’t among them.