Writing in yesterday’s New York Times, David Brooks claims that “the likely Democratic presidential nominee is Hillary Clinton, who has been barely distinguishable from John McCain on foreign policy matters (aside from her ports pandering).”
Hmm. “Barely distinguishable”? It just so happens that National Journal released their 2005 vote ratings last week. And it turns out that McCain and Clinton disagree quite a bit about matters other than the wisdom of immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
National Journal ranked Clinton as more liberal than 66 percent of senators on foreign policy votes in 2005, whereas McCain was more liberal than 45 percent of senators. And out of the thirteen votes that went into the NJ foreign policy rating, McCain
and Clinton voted in opposite directions on seven:
84/S600: Retain the cap on U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations. April 6. (40-57) C-3
(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)
129/-: Limit debate on the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. representative to the United Nations. May 26. (56-42; 60 votes required to invoke cloture. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., voted no so that he could subsequently move to reconsider the vote.) L-3
(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)
170/S1307: Approve the Central American Free Trade Agreement. June 30. (54-45) C-2
(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)
171/HR2419: Prohibit funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. July 1. (43-53) C-3
(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)
319/S1042: Deny access to the federal courts for most detainees at Guantanamo. November 10. (49-42) C-3
(McCain: Yea; Clinton: Nay)
322/S1042: Require the president to provide a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. November 15. (40-58) C-3
(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)
324/S1042: Grant habeas corpus rights to the federal courts for detainees and enemy combatants. November 15. (44-54) C-3
(McCain: Nay; Clinton: Yea)
To be fair, there’s a complicated debate about how to measure legislators’ preferences. The National Journal vote ratings are an imperfect proxy at best. But they do illustrate that McCain and Clinton are quite easily distinguishable on foreign policy.
I’ll have to take this up with Brooks when he comes to Duke next year…