Beyond the Dome

Now, the general election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain begins. And, believe it or not, one of the first things they're arguing about is their voting records in the Senate.

In his remarks prepared for tonight -- his first speech as the future Democratic nominee -- Obama tries, as you might expect, to tie McCain to President Bush as closely as possible. And one of the ways he does that is to note that McCain voted in support of Bush's policies 95 percent of the time in 2007 -- a statistic that comes from CQ's annual vote studies.

"It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush ninety-five percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year," Obama says in his speech.

That line brought an instant response from McCain spokesman Brian Rogers, who e-mailed reporters CQ's vote studies for McCain's entire congressional career (25 years) and Obama's entire Senate career (three years). The McCain campaign's message: Look at the candidates' independence from their parties, not their records of supporting Bush.

"A far better measure of bipartisan leadership is clearly a senator's party unity rating. By that measure, it's clear that Senator Obama has been a consistent partisan, voting with his party over 95 percent of the time, while John McCain has a demonstrated independent record, voting with his party between 70 and 90 percent of the time in recent years," Rogers said.

That's true, as far it goes. But here are a few other notes to put their records in perspective:

• McCain did, in fact, vote with Bush 95 percent of the time last year. But that was his highest score of Bush's eight years (the lowest was in 2005, when he voted with Bush only 77 percent of the time).

• Last year was a special case with McCain, since he only made 44 percent of the votes. And most of the votes he cast were on a couple of very different issues where he sided with Bush: Iraq, an issue where McCain and Obama are at odds, and immigration, an issue where they're not.

• Obama does usually vote with his party -- 97 percent of the time in 2005 and 2007, and 96 percent of the time in 2006. But those figures mask a few significant votes he has cast against his party, such as a 2007 vote in which he sided with Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina -- and against the Democratic leadership -- in voting for a DeMint amendment to require greater disclosure of earmarks.

And Obama does leave room for McCain's departures from his party in the Senate. He just says there's little sign of the maverick in his presidential campaign. "While John McCain can legitimately tout moments of independence from his party in the past," Obama says in his speech, "such independence has not been the hallmark of his presidential campaign."

Let the general election begin.