he's going to roll over 50 million for his next presidential run hoping hillary loses.

he should get out of the way and let Edwards have a one on one instead of deluding his army of followers that he intends to win

So far Obama has missed 1) the vote on comdemning Moveon, 2)  the Lieberman-Kyl Bill (the war with Iran bill) and 3) this bill, on ending the war in Iraq.

Obama already voted YEA on the Feingold amdt. in Sept. It had no chance for passing today.

He is fighting for the nomination out in the streets right now....

I think the last I heard of Obama he was celebrating the anniversary of his anti war speech.

However it seems he has already voted on a similar legislation , that might make him a little more immune to charges of ducking or abseenteeism but i'll rather him spend more time voting to do something about changing the course of the war than celebrating the anniversary of his anti war speech.

Priorities are out of whack to me and it looks a little too self centered.

The defense so far seems to be that he's on-record as supporting the sentiment, and that's enough.

campaigning.  He never did get those 16 Republican senators to over come a veto all his supporters were talking about last spring.

The vote he missed that bothered me more was the Iran war vote.  He was in town for that.  

yet when he cannot make these votes while others can, why should his boasts be taken seriously.

Yes, he made a bold speech in 2202, though some argue that he did put his career at risk like he claims.

But when the man calls out others about Iraq as he did yesterday, and those others show up to vote on an amendment to redeploy troops from Iraq, then I agree with Mr. Armstrong completely.

It's a matter of priorities and we are seeing Obama's.

"Why Obama opens himself up to criticism by being the only Democrat to be absent on voting to end the war in Iraq is baffling."

To be sure.  But what exactly does this criticism consist of?  And how likely is such criticism to cost him votes in Iowa?

Don't get me wrong.  Feingold was actually my first choice for 08.  And all things equal, I would have prefered to see Obama fling himself against the brick wall like Clinton, Dodd and Biden.

But clearly he's made a calculation that missing these votes won't be what costs him the nomination--however much ire he draws from the activist blogosphere.  And he's probably right.

This amendment was brought up for a vote in May and lost 29-67.

It was brought up again two weeks ago and lost 28-70.

It was erroneously suggested by some that we lost a vote between May and September; in fact, the difference was simply due to absentees.  In both cases we had 30 Democrats who supported ending the war, even though not all of them were present to vote.

Today, the vote was 28-68.  I'm told it was essentially the same amendment as the one that lost two weeks ago, so I kind of shrug at the fact that Obama missed this one.  What concerns me more is that Sen. Inouye from Hawaii apparently voted no today, when he supported the Feingold Amendment in both May and September.

I called his office and they didn't have a clue.  I suppose there could be some sort of clerical error.

I don't like our chances of being able to end the war prior to 2009 when we can't even pick up a single vote on the Feingold amendment as the months go by.

Obama's missing votes are part of why he scores so low on Progressive Punch's "Chips are down" score. He is not there in the pinch. That also affects Dodd. Clinton ranks highest of all our Senator candidates on all three Progressive Punch measures.

He skipped the vote on Bidens plan recently.  He skipped the sense of the Senate vote against Movon.  He was in D.C. when those votes were taken.

He also, as Lori pointed out in another diary, has a history from IL of skipping (by voting 'present' vs. yes / no) tough votes in issues like abortion and gun control.

Re: his IL votes:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article s/2007/02/the_everpresent_obama.html

Thanks to lori for the link.

Diary here.

I'm not ready to pile on him. It's a meaningless vote. I want Hillary Clinton to skip some votes as well. She needs to get out of Washington ASAP.

If only Obama had been there...we would have lost 68-29.  And if only 22 more Senators had joined with him, and the house passed the bill too, and they worked it out in conference, and the President accidentally signed it, it would go into effect.

When one of the candidate misses a close vote, Ill be pissed.  Until then, please continue to campaign so that a Democratic President can end the war in 2009.

Slightly off topic to this diary

but I saw this diary by Detroit Mark at Dkos on the same topic but he had a puzzling and disturbing observation

Watching C-Span's coverage of today's Senate Session, it appears as though the Democratic Party has fallen into a complete slumber on the issue of Iraq redeployment.  They scheduled 2 hours for debate on Sen. Russ Feingold's (D-WI) amendment which would require withdrawal of all troops by June of 08.  And then they proceeded to run the clock out with quoram calls, and wandering around the floor like so many lost air terminal customers.  No big speeches worthy of news coverage.  No passion.  No "fight the good fight" conflict.  To this voter's untrained eye, the entire process was an exercise in futility and time wasting.

I actually watched Joe Lieberman and Russ Feingold laughing and slapping each other on the back as the amendment went down in defeat.  What the fuck was so funny?

Did anyone else watch this on C-span.  I just find these comments distressing and it makes me wonder just what is going on in Washington?  

Joe Lieberman is Dodd's friend now and Feingold's?

From USAToday:

Four presidential candidates -- Biden, Brownback, Obama and McCain -- missed last week's Senate vote to renew and expand a federal-state health insurance program for children.

Clinton, meanwhile, was not only present for the Senate vote but also appeared on CNN and other TV programs to discuss her support for expanding health coverage to millions of uninsured children and to criticize the president's threatened veto. She also did a telephone conference call with reporters in Iowa, telling the media in the state with the nation's first presidential caucus why children's health coverage is important to her.

Link to roll call:  here

This is the bill that President Bush vetoed today, a legislation expanding a children's health insurance program by $35 billion over five years.

Yep...
It was voted down...fold the tents...no reason to bring it up again....
Ya think Clinton, Dodd, or Biden could have campaigning to do?
When he gave his speech yesterday...He knew this was coming. Yes he had a schedule. During his speech he could have said.."although I will be unable to vote to cut funding tomorrow, I have supported it, and still support it."

The purpose of bringing this up again...and again...and again...is to put pressure to end this occupation. Obama is a non-voter just like our Colorado Salazar....the difference is we don't expect anything from Salazar...

I wonder...if it were up to Obama, and not his handlers, would he have been there?
It will be interesting to see how he responds to this. I have not written him off..but i am disappointed.

I must respond to this crap from Dem in Dallas

"he didn't miss it...he made the SMART and PRINCIPLED choice to condemn the whole charade."

If you really believe attempts to force an end to this madness is a charade then I can only assume,
you believe until January 2009...the Dems do nothing.

To many of us...and yes we vote in primaries and caucuses...ending this shit is not a charade...

I am assuming you do nothing to stop the executions in Texas because doing so is just a charade...

Clinton was ABSENT during the real vote to fund the Iraq war.  She says she wants a timeline, but isn't around to insert one.  

HJ Res 52 (on Sept 27)  

Now she's here to vote for the one that will give her the 'anti-war image'.  How typical.  

votes.

Sitting sens get bounced over shit like this.  You think the GOP won't hit him with missed votes in the general if he's our nominee?