Kerry Vote Watch

The Senate had a four day workweek last week, meeting from Tuesday through Friday and there were 12 floor votes. John Kerry, who hasn’t cast a vote for Massachusetts since June 12th, finally showed up to vote on Thursday, July 10th so he could lend support to health of the nation. Unfortunately, the nation was Mexico.

For some reason, although he was clearly in the vicinity of Washington, Kerry skipped the next two votes on Thursday but then re-appeared to vote for a resolution “To express the sense of the Congress that the United States remain engaged in Iraq in order to ensure a peaceful, stable, unified Iraq with a representative government.”

Of course, the only vote of real consequence last week in the Senate was the motion to invoke cloture on the “Patients First” bill; the Democrats successfully filibustered this Republican-led effort for tort reform. But Kerry was nowhere to be found. Is this the beginning of a “Rose Garden” strategy by the Kerry campaign? It appears he has no intention of putting his mark on anything remotely controversial. He wants to be a blank slate – a tabula rasa – to the voters, unencumbered by any vote he may or may not have made.

Days worked: 1
Votes missed: 10