"Two memoirs but not a single major law or reform"

BKER1492,

In the past year none of John McCain's sponsored bills have passed the Senate. Not one. The previous year, 26 of McCain's bills passed the senate. 18 of them dealt with Indian affairs. One created a United States Boxing Comission. Five of them told other countries to "be nice". And one recognized the importance of "sun safety".

Which of these is a major law again?

So what your saying is McCain had 26 of his bills passed in just one year (and he's been there for some 25 others) and Obama has had seven self sponsored bills passed in his entire career. And all seven were just resolutions, or as he puts it, "WORDS, just WORDS".

I'm saying that McCain had 6 resolutions (five telling nations to be nice, and one recognizing the importance of "sun safety"), 1 bill relating to the sport of boxing, and 18 bills relating to indian affairs passed in one year. This is all he could manage after 25 years in the senate with the committee seats and political connections granted to him by such seniority. Obama had 4 passed in his first year in the US Senate as a junior senator, and another 4 in his second. 7 of them were resolutions. One was a bill: "4. [109th] S.2125 : A bill to promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

Seems fairly substantive to me. Much more so than increasing fees collected from Indian Casinos.

There's also the little fact that the number of bills sponsored by Obama has increased this year, despite his campaigning, while McCains has drastically decreased. McCain has gone on vacation to campaign, and Obama is still hard at work. And Obama has simply been more productive in introducing bills than McCain has. Yes, McCain has had the connections to get more bills overall passed, but he's not introducing nearly as many for debate.

I think you're assuming that the graph represents all of the bills that were passed, rather than a sampling. Do you know that for a fact? And even using your numbers, that averages to 2 a year. That's two better than McCain has done this year as a US Senator. And Barack has had 4 pass the Senate this year alone.

There's also the little fact that almost all of the laws passed by legislatures, state and federal, are minor amendments to existing law or resolutions, rather than brand new laws. All of McCain's 18 Indian Affairs bills were for the purpose of amending existing law, as was his boxing bill. So for the past two years, Obama still leads McCain by 1 brand new law to 0. A law, incidentally, that has a strong impact on our dealings with other nations.

iarnuocon: I believe BKER1492 means all of the bills in McCain's entire career.

His career started in the 98th Congress, where he served in the House rather than the senate. He passed one bill that year.

Next year he was still in the house, and passed four bills.

He moved to the Senate next, and during the 100th congress passed 5 bills.

10 bills in the 101st.
12 in the 102nd.
14 in the 103rd.
15 in the 104th.
12 in the 105th.
13 in the 106th.
8 in the 107th.
27 in the 108th.
26 in the 109th.
0 in the 110th.

That's 142 bills total that he had pass either the house when he was a congressman, or the senate when he was a senator.

Since McCain has been in office for 26 years, this is an average of 5.46 bills passed each year or 11.8 per congress.

Obama's present average is four passed per congress. Not bad for a newbie, and far better than McCain managed during his own first two congresses, where McCain averaged 3 bills passed per congress.

But looking at recent accomplishments, Obama is clearly still working at his job while McCain seems to be asleep at his post. And how exactly does one run on "change" and "reform" as McCain is trying to do when he is personally responsible for 142 of the laws already in existence thanks to his quarter-century in office?

Mike... I believe the pension funds aspect was included to make sure that if a former state employee broke the law by selling arms to Iran, investing heavily in their energy sector, or loaning large amounts of money to the Iranian government, the states could withold their pension as part of the penalties for such acts.

As for why he would think he could get bills passed? I would think that's because he has already demonstrated the ability to do so as a Senator. Part of his job for the past 3+ years has been convincing other Senators to vote for his bills. Add to that experience the power of the veto, and you have a fair means of persuading someone to give your bills a chance.

Finally:

If you are indeed what you say you are, and you have lost friends in past actions, you sir should be ashamed of yourself for attempting to paint Barack Obama with the name Osama. It dishonors your fallen comrades to be invoked in the same statement as this slur. If you remember the US Cole, and the marines, and 9/11 as you claim, why aren't you supporting Obama? He is the only candidate running on a promise to get us out of Iraq and actually hunt down Osama bin Laden to make him pay for those actions. Iraq, as you should know if you're actually familiar with the Cole and the marine barracks bombing, and 9/11, had nothing to do with those attacks. We are presently unable to pursue our attackers because we have allowed ourselves to become bogged down in Iraq. Then too, there are the Kuwait bombings of 1983, which occurred shortly after the Lebanon bombing. The current US-installed prime minister of Iraq is one of those who was responsible for those bombings, having been at that time the head of al-Dawa's jihad branch. One of his men who was arrested for the bombings is currently serving as a member of the Iraqi parlaiment. The republican administration has gone to war in Iraq to place a known terrorist and his subordinates in charge. Don't you think this situation needs to change? And yet Obama is the one you try to paint with the name of a terrorist, and suggest he would sacrifice lives for nothing by making sure no more American blood is shed for the terrorist al-Maliki's government?