Beyond the Dome

There's a reason more senators with long track records don't run for president. Those long track records can get in the way of a good speech.

Today, John McCain gave a speech at the University of Denver about how to limit the spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world.

"We should stop and think for a moment not only of the perils of a world awash with nuclear weapons, but also of the more hopeful alternative - a world in which there are far fewer such weapons than there are today, and in which proliferation, instability, and nuclear terrorism are far less likely," McCain said. "This is the world it is our responsibility to build."

Maybe so, but for most of his Senate career, McCain seems to have had other priorities.

Take his 1999 vote against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. At the time, he called the treaty "dangerously premature," saying other countries' compliance couldn't be verified and the United States would not have been able to test its aging nuclear stockpiles to make sure they still work.

That's one vote McCain cops to in his speech. He says he now wants to take another look at the treaty "to see what can be done to overcome the shortcomings that prevented it from entering into force." And he leave himself an out in his 1999 floor speech, saying, "I will consider supporting a treaty when alternative means of ensuring safety and reliability are proven, and when a credible verification regime is proposed."

But McCain has also opposed other measures to limit testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. In 1992, he voted against a nine-month moratorium on nuclear testing. In 1987, he voted not to continue the SALT II treaty's limits on the deployment of nuclear missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.

And in another 1987 vote, McCain voted to table a proposal to ban tests of nuclear weapons with a yield of more than one kiloton. (And the measure was sponsored by a fellow Republican, Mark Hatfield of Oregon. The senator who tabled it? Harry Reid.)

There's also a bit of a historical clash with McCain's promise today that he would cancel all work on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or "bunker buster" - a new type of bomb that, according to Candidate McCain, "does not make strategic or political sense."

It must have made sense to Senator McCain, though, since he missed three chances to cancel the funding. McCain voted against Democratic proposals to cut off the funds in 2003, 2004, and 2005.