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The Senator's 'Streak' Ends At 57th Vote

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Monday, March 5, 2007

Sure, it wasn't quite DiMaggio-esque in terms of its pop culture mythology, as far as "streaks" go. But Barack Obama's reign as the only perfect attendee of Senate votes among presidential hopefuls came to a crashing end last week.

After 56 straight votes this year on the chamber floor, Obama (D-Ill.) missed his 57th on Friday, bypassing his senatorial duties on a homeland security bill to deliver a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting in Chicago.

"He really hoped to make it back to Washington in time, but it turns out, that was just the audacity of hope," spokesman Ben LaBolt said of the streak ending.

Obama was the last of the six senators already declared for the presidential campaign to have made every vote in the chamber this year. He missed a second vote Friday as well. Both were amendments that sailed to easy passage in the ongoing debate on the homeland security bill.

Obama wasn't alone: Declared candidates Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) missed both votes.

But if politics were baseball, Biden and McCain were barely on the field last week. Out of six votes on the homeland security bill, they made it to one apiece.

-- Paul Kane