During the September 1 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News contributor and columnist Dick Morris asserted that while Democrats say “things are terrible, [President] Bush is awful, and [Sen. John] McCain is more of same,” "[t]hat statistic that 90 percent of the time they vote together? Ninety percent of the votes in the Senate are unanimous. Bush, [Sen. Barack] Obama, and McCain probably vote together 90 percent of the time on resolutions congratulating the New York Giants and stuff." While McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time over the seven-and-a-half years of Bush's presidency, according to a presidential support study by the nonpartisan publication Congressional Quarterly that McCain himself has cited, CQ found that Obama has voted with Bush 40 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator in 2005.
CQ also found that McCain was the Bush administration's most reliable vote in 2007. The publication reported in a January 13 article (accessed in the Nexis news database): “Repeated votes on immigration and the Iraq War also helped elevate Republican John McCain of Arizona, one of Bush's chief adversaries in the Senate in 2005, to be one of his biggest supporters in 2007. McCain's 95 percent support score for last year was the highest in the chamber.”
CQ describes its process for determining presidential support as follows:
Presidential Support: This analysis uses all votes where the editors of Congressional Quarterly determined that President Bush had taken a clear position prior to the vote. There were 443 such votes in the House during the period (9 percent of the total) and 564 such votes in the Senate (22 percent).
On average, House Republicans supported Bush on 80 percent of such votes and Democrats supported the president on just 20 percent. In the Senate, where votes on confirmations tend to elevate presidential support scores, Republicans voted with Bush 88 percent of the time, and Democrats gave him their support on 51 percent of the relevant votes.
From the September 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
BILL O'REILLY (host): All right, last question for you: Do you agree with me that the two issues that McCain should hammer this week are national security-war on terror --
MORRIS: Yep.
O'REILLY: -- and the economy-gas prices?
MORRIS: Yeah.
O'REILLY: Really, that's where this thing is going to be won or lost.
MORRIS: That should be the substance of it, Bill, but the message should be, “I am no George Bush.” The message should be to take each of those issues and show how he would be different from Bush. Because the minute you do that, McCain becomes an acceptable alternative to Obama.
The Democratic convention said things are terrible, Bush is awful, and McCain is more of same. That last phrase is the one you have to lop off, and if do you that, the Democrats don't have a comeback.
And after all, ask anybody in politics, and they'll tell you of the 50 U.S. senators, McCain is the least like Bush. That statistic that 90 percent of the time they vote together? Ninety percent of the votes in the Senate are unanimous. Bush, Obama, and McCain probably vote together 90 percent of the time on resolutions --
O'REILLY: OK.
MORRIS: -- congratulating the New York Giants and stuff.
O'REILLY: All right, Dick.
MORRIS: Thank you.
O'REILLY: We'll see you out here tomorrow as Morris heads west.
