Paulie, you're not credible unless you give the recorded Roll Call Vote number in the Senate. They are available at www.senate.gov.

Your turn lazy.

In 2005 he voted for the Bridge to Nowhere.

It would be easier to try and name one good thing he did for this state. Much shorter list.

In 2005, he voted against a $100 million budget to fund crazy things like birth control and other family planning services.

Senate vote #75 (3/17/05)

I'd like to find all the instances over a few years when Smith voted opposite Wyden, canceling out Oregon's influence on legislation. Theme for Merkley: let's send a Senator who will work with Ron Wyden, not take his vote away.

Anyone know how to distill all those votes down so we can find those instances of cancellation?

-Demanding Integrity,

How about demanding some tact? So sorry that everyone cannot live up to YOUR standards.

Fair and Balanced - I think Smith has canceled out Wyden's vote something like 1700 times. We've effectively had no voice in the Senate for years.

He voted to approve torture when he voted to approve the torturer Alberto Gonzales' nomination to Attorney General.

...on the Gordon Smith body armor vote:

Vote #116, 108th Congress, 1st Session. April 2, 2003, 05:35 PM

Motion to table Amendment by Senator Landrieu (D-LA), to appropriate $1, 047,000,000 for procurement for the National Guard and Reserves (including improved ballistic body armor for NG and Reserve troops being deployed to Iraq who were being sent without or with ineffective Vietnam-era armor).

Smith (R-OR), Yea

Dated 4/10/08: Voted No on Vote 94: H R 3221: Alexander Amdt. No. 4429; To provide a longer extension of the renewable energy production tax credit and to encourage all emerging renewable sources of electricity, and for other purposes.

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Fair & Balanced: use this link to run a manual comparison between Wyden and Smith if you like - this is set to Smith -

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/s001142/key-votes/

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Generally speaking: Gordon Smith has voted with a majority of his Republican colleagues 72.2% of the time during the current Congress. He missed only four votes thus far. Makes him a relatively high-percentage go along/get along guy who shows up most of the time to get it done. Interesting to review how his verbal cant has shifted to the softened middle of late, but his record remains resolutely partisan.

If we return him to office, we had better be sure we want him there, he definitely does his job, no matter how little we like him (as compared to McCain, who has a compelling record of missed votes).

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/s001142/

Compare him to McCain, with a 6oth percentile vote-miss. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/senate/vote-missers/

Dated 4/10/08: Voted No on Vote 94: H R 3221: Alexander Amdt. No. 4429; To provide a longer extension of the renewable energy production tax credit and to encourage all emerging renewable sources of electricity, and for other purposes.

Isn't this interesting:

Smith: Nay Wyden Nay Feingold Nay

Which means if Merkley would vote like Wyden as he says: Merkley Nay

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Vote 349, 2007, 110th Congress: To express the sense of the Senate regarding Iran (the infamous Kyl Amendment)

Smith: Yea Durbin Yea Feinstein Yea Dorgan Yea

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Vote 245, 2005, 109th Congress: Confirmation of John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States

Smith: Yea Wyden Yea Feingold Yea Murray Yea

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Vote 134, 2004, 108th Congress: To increase the penalties for violations by television broadcasters of the prohibitions against transmission of obscene, indecent, and profane language

Smith: Yea Wyden Yea Dorgan Yea

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On the votes WaPo designated as key votes, Smith and Wyden voted the same 50% of the time.

In 2004, when Wyden was up for re-election he and Smith voted the same 54% of the time. To be sure, many of those votes were when Democrats were rubber-stamping Republican judicial appointments, but I can't remember Wyden leading many filibusters on the votes they split on and that Democrats lost by a smaller margin then required by cloture.

D.I.: another poster earlier mentioned that perhaps election year votes should not count against a politico. I assume this is because of election-year pressures creating anomalous voting patterns we take for granted as evidence of American political process/structures...

In one way, perhaps one might savvily overlook it. But the idealist [dogmatist?] in me observes the departures from a given politician's typical positions and expressed values. The degree of departure could signal the relative strength or lack of personal conviction, as well as devotion to the will of one's constituent electorate.

Under pressure: how intensely do you fold, and on what issues, which nuances of which issues?

I noticed in Smith's voting record a spate of some 4-5 land use and transparency issues that seemed so closely clustered as to be, in effect, an initiative of some kind. He voted against disclosures I would approve of...

Appallingly, on key votes for this year, I found in the WaPo resource that Smith was not the toad I like to think he is. Time to read the legislation in its entirety to get back my posture.... or look to other resources to see if they consider the same votes as "key", and how this changes his profiling.

Yuck. Please don't let me approve of this legislator. I shall feel quite rudderless if this should come to pass.