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Posted Monday, July 06, 2009 2:55 PM

Which Senators Are the Biggest Obama Supporters?

Katie Connolly

CQ Politics has a great tool that analyzes the voting patterns of members of Congress. Your Gaggler has just spent a few minutes perusing the records of senators--specifically the degree to which they support the president--and found some interesting results. CQ has tallied the votes from the 214 roll-call votes of this Congress, up through June 25. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the two Republican senators offering greatest support for the president's agenda are Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both from Maine. Each supported the president in 92 percent of their votes. Ohio's George Voinovich came in third with 83 percent support, and fourth was New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg with 82 percent support. Yep, that's the same Judd Gregg who was offered the post of commerce secretary but the unexpectedly withdrew his name citing "irresolvable conflicts" with the Obama administration. Maybe they weren't so irresolvable after all.

On the other end of the spectrum, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn has cast his vote in line with the president's wishes just 32 percent of the time. Coburn is a staunch conservative who decries increases in government spending and has criticized Obama on a range of topics, including his cabinet nominees and his economic recovery plans. But he also counts himself as a friend of the president. He's even met personally with the Obama in the Oval Office. "We’re very good friends. We’re totally different, but we respect eachother immensely, and we have a personal relationship that’s outside ourpolitics," Coburn told The Oklahoman newspaper in March. (What's that old saying again? With friends like these ...) Jim Bunning from Kentucky and the senior Oklahoman Sen. James Inhofe aren't big fans of the president's agenda either, voting with him 35 percent and 43 percent respectively. And what of Obama's old campaign rivals? John McCain and Lindsey Graham are right in the middle of the pack. McCain has voted for Obama's plans 62 percent of the time and Graham 63 percent.

Across the aisle, Democrats appear quite disciplined (well, for Democrats anyway) with three quarters of them voting with the president 95 percent of the time or more. Sens. Carl Levin (Michigan), Patrick Leahy (Vermont), John Rockerfeller (West Virginia), Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse (both Rhode Island) all have a perfect record of support. (Ted Kennedy has thrown 100 percent of his votes behind the president, but he's only been present for 4 percent of the votes counted this year.) Russ Feingold from Wisconsin is the Democrat least supportive of the president, voting 86 percent of the time with hs agenda. For all his talk of being an independent centrist, Evan Bayh of Indiana has still voted with Obama 95 percent of the time. And Joe Lieberman, who prominently campaigned against Obama last year and is technically an independent, still cast 97 percent of his votes in favor of the president. 

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Member Comments

Posted By: John Dough (July 7, 2009 at 1:10 PM)

What does voting with him mean? If he proposes cap and trade at the extreme he did and then the house waters it down and passes it is that voting with him? THE GOP OPPOSES ALL HIS RADICAL PROPOSALS 100% This included his stimulus bill, his cap and tax proposal, his radical proposals to eliminate nearly all ta x deductions ie chartiable contributions, mortgage interest, state and local property taxes, health care and in addition to that wants to tax your employer provided health care as income but he's not increaeing taxes Yeah right. Supporting him is not necessarily supporting his ideas but a variation of some of them that look so different from the original porposal that it is not even the same idea. TERM LIMITS, GOP in 2010 and anybody but Obama in 2012.


Posted By: Morgan2008 (July 7, 2009 at 6:05 AM)

The Senators who are the biggest Obama supporters will not be reelected in November 2010.


Posted By: sklaene (July 6, 2009 at 10:07 PM)

cyfi, you said it perfectly.