Just Where Do Obama and McCain Stand? You Decide!

Questions that seem to come often include:

• Is there any way to learn where Obama and McCain really stand, other than by relying on biased, muckraking political ads and web sites?
  
• How have these two senators voted in Congress?

I asked a close friend about this. She pointed me to web sites for the Washington Post and the Library Of Congress. So, I decided to dig around and I found several easy to use pages with boatloads of information on Obama and McCain.

Below are two links at the Washington Post with pages containing the following information:

• Brief biographies


• Their roles in Congress


• Their key votes (as determined by the Washington Post


• Information about their state


• Official financial disclosure statements detailing who has given them money


• How many votes they missed in the current Congress


• How often they voted with their parties


• Their most recent votes

At the bottom of the page is a link to their full, unedited voting record. From here, drilling into individual vote results will take you to a summary for the respective bill at the Library of Congress web site. Don't be discouraged at the amount of information to sift through.

Looks like the Washington Post has done a great job at summarizing the information. Its a worthwhile visit if you believe their stance on the issues is represented by their voting records. Just remember to dig into the bills themselves because they are sometimes mutated by riders and amendments before the final vote.

Washington Post's Summary of Senator John McCain

Washington Post's Summary of Senator Barack Obama


There is also a similar summary over at GovTrack.US which includes easy to use information about the bills they have introduced into Congress. Check this place out if you believe their position is best represented by the bills they have sponsored and cosponsored. Information presented here is mainly from the current congressional session.

GovTrack.us Summary Of Senator John McCain

GovTrack.us Summary Of Senator Barack Obama



Finally - I've whipped up a page which will show you bills they have sponsored/cosponsored in the current and previous congressional sessions.

Enjoy!