Voting records condemn!

The attack ads practically write themselves: Hillary Clinton voted against ethanol! Barack Obama wants to increase taxes!
Such are the perils of running for president as a senator. The two front-runners for the 2008 Democratic nomination are newcomers to the chamber. But in the two years that Clinton and Obama have overlapped, they have taken opposite sides at least 40 times. That's a lot of material to mine, and even misrepresent.
Of the eight senators pondering presidential runs, Clinton (N.Y.), who is completing her first Senate term, and Obama (Ill.), sworn in two years ago, have the briefest voting histories. The Senate has held 645 roll-call votes during their shared tenure, and more than 90 percent of the time the two senators stood with other Democrats. They opposed John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination as chief justice, supported increased funding for embryonic stem cell research and backed the same nonbinding measure that urged President Bush to plan for a gradual troop withdrawal from Iraq.
But other votes reveal important differences between the Democratic rivals that distinguish them as they prepare to launch their anticipated candidacies. The areas of dispute include energy policy, congressional ethics and budget priorities, relations with Cuba, gun ownership, and whether a senator can hold a second job.
In corn-growing Iowa, the first stop in the presidential nominating process, Clinton will have to explain the ethanol vote she cast on June 15, 2005. The senator recently softened her stance, but she is on record opposing a large federal boost for the grain-based fuel.
And Obama voted to increase taxes when he opposed a package of business breaks that included the extension of middle-class provisions. Clinton voted for the tax bill -- before she voted against it, as did Obama, in the legislation's final form.
As Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and former senator Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) discovered in previous campaigns, the Congressional Record is a minefield for White House contenders, a catalogue of provincial concerns, convoluted logic and compromised principles.
One of the sharpest substantive divides is over ethanol, an issue of particular potency in Iowa. The vote in question was an effort to block a proposed amendment to the 2005 energy bill that would have established an ethanol mandate for refineries. "If there were ever an onerous, anti-competitive, anti-free-market provision, this is it," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who led the effort and who warned that non-farming states could face spikes in gasoline prices because of supply limitations. Clinton at the time was campaigning for reelection and was one of 28 senators to support her colleague's failed bid.
Over the past year, Clinton has warmed to ethanol. Buffalo has decided to build a big ethanol plant, making the issue a home-state concern. In May, Clinton said current ethanol production is "a long way from helping us deal with our gas problems" and added: "We need to be moving on a much faster track."
Obama voted for the ethanol mandate. "As a senator from a corn-growing state, Obama will have no problem on the ethanol issue and can tout his credentials on this score with a clear conscience," said Peverill Squire, who teaches politics at the University of Iowa.
The two Democrats differed on other energy-related issues. In August, Clinton supported a bill to expand oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, while Obama voted against it. During the 2005 energy debate, Obama backed an increase in vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, which Clinton opposed. Clinton voted against the energy bill itself because it was stuffed with oil industry incentives. But Obama supported the legislation because it included language that would double ethanol demand by 2012.
Another fault line is spending. Obama sided with fiscal conservatives on several high-profile measures to strip funding for pet projects, including a widely criticized Pentagon travel system and the relocation of a railroad line along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that was part of a Hurricane Katrina redevelopment project. Clinton voted in favor of the projects.
The senators differed on a July 13 vote that would prohibit the confiscation of legally held guns during natural disasters -- a response to seizures by law enforcement officials in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina. Obama voted to ban confiscations; Clinton was one of 16 senators opposing the restrictions.
In late 2005, Obama allied with Republicans to support creating an exception to Senate rules to allow Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to continue practicing medicine on a not-for-profit basis. Clinton opposed the change, an aide explained, because she believes that senators should not have a second source of income. Gibbs said that Obama, as an author of two best-selling books, was sympathetic to Coburn's request.
In several instances, Clinton and Obama voted against measures that they supported in principle, because the bills were not strong enough. Clinton opposed a restructuring plan for the Federal Emergency Management Agency that Obama and 86 other senators backed, because it did not restore the Cabinet-level status that FEMA had attained under President Bill Clinton, her husband. One of Obama's chief interests in the Senate has been ethics reform, but he was one of eight senators to oppose a bill aimed at tightening lobbyist rules because it was not strong enough. Clinton supported the initiative.

Soo…Clinton wants to keep us on oil, huh? And she’s following Kerry’s lead, changing her votes on tax breaks. Hillary wants to up fuel production in the Gulf of Mejico, but Obama doesn’t. Obama wants to tighten up on vehicle fuel-emission standards, but Hillary doesn’t. Heck, as much as she loves oil and hates alternative fuels, I’m surprised she isn’t supporting Bush’s war for oil or whatever they’re calling it.

Hillary wants to take your guns away in a natural disaster. WTF??? And then, she wants to restore FEMA to a cabinet-level as it was when her adulterine husband was the president. So how is that any different than Bush doing things for his daddy? She can do things for her husband and that’s alright, but Bush can’t do things for his pappy? Oh, that’s right, double-standards only work one way.