McCain has made a point of saying that he didn’t miss any votes where he would have made a difference and would always be there for votes that would have a special impact on Arizona. But, as Eric Kleefeld pointed on in Talking Points Memo, not only was this a vote on an esoteric issue that had little impact on Arizona (it was for a provision exempting children of Filipino World War II vets from immigration quotas), but it passed with by the margin of 87-10. That 87th vote was crucial, no doubt.

McCain hadn’t voted since mid-April, and he was starting to feel the heat, not only from lefty jackasses like me, but from members of his own party. It leads one to wonder if it was the issue that brought McCain to the chamber to grace them with his presence and vote, or if he was just trying to blunt criticism.

I’ve been thinking back to who in Arizona history had missed so many votes. I guess you could go back to Arizona’s first congressional delegates in the 1850s, William Claude Jones and Sylvester Mowry. Those guys never voted at all. Of course, they were not even allowed to be seated since Arizona wasn’t legally a territory yet and thus they weren’t legally elected. But, that’s enough precedent, right?

Say, does McCain have a home in Bimini?