CQ Study shows McCain less loyal to party than Obama and Biden

By Ed Lasky

In a companion blog to today's article I would like to point readers to an item in National Review. Yuval Levin notes that Congressional Quarterly analyzed the voting records of Senators Obama, Biden, and McCain. Which Senator is the winner when it comes to working across the aisle to get things done in order to change things?

John McCain and it is not even a close contest.

The results for the three senators running in this race are not necessarily what the Democrats wish they were. Both Obama and Biden, for instance, turn out to have very high party loyalty, following the extremely unpopular leaders of the Democratic senate on almost every close vote. Obama’s party loyalty score was 96%, making him a more orthodox Democrat than even the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, whose score was 93%. Biden was tied with Reid, at 93%. John McCain, meanwhile, had a party loyalty score of 81%, among the lowest in the Republican conference, as many of his fellow Republican senators could no-doubt attest.

While this may disturb conservatives, it certainly enhances McCain's appeal to the block of independents that have shifted towards him in the last few weeks. His conservative base has been bolstered by Sarah Palin which increasingly is looking like a masterstroke.