on to most of his fellow Republicans. Senator McCain sponsored several legislative attempts to reform the campaign finance laws. He believes this is necessary to restore the public interest in our political process and increase government accountability. He regularly takes to the Senate floor to expose the pork-barrel provisions in spending bills. Republicans were particularly annoyed by his opposition to subsidies for ethanol, as well as his failed attempt to pass an anti-tobacco bill.In order to understand Senator McCain’s ideological voting patterns, I analyzed Senate votes occurring in the off-year sessions of 1997 and 1995. I then compared the percentage of votes that McCain voted in agreement with other Republican Senators in order to get an idea of where he stands on the issues.I used Senator Thurmond of South Carolina and Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania as my conservative Republicans and Senator Snowe of Maine and Senator Specter of Pennsylvania as my liberal Republicans. From September to December of 1997 (votes #212-293), Senator McCain agreed with these Senators as follows:Senator%AgreementThurmond75%Santorum72%Snowe72%Specter70%In 1997, Senator McCain showed a tendency to vote in agreement with the conservative Senators, but there was not much of a spread in the percentage of agreement. I then analyzed votes #393-492, which occurred between September and Decemeber of 1995.Senator%AgreementThurmond89%Santorum84%Snowe58%Specter56%During this period of time in 1995, there were more votes (100), which gives us a better idea of Senator McCain’s ideological tendencies. Senator McCain’s record in 1995 shows clearly conservative tendencies indicated by his agreement with Senator Thurmond in almost 9 out of every 10 votes.In conclusion, McCain’s record is complex, but in some ways he is well in sync with his party. He is a social conservative who voted against what critics call partial birth abortio...
