Votes Can Haunt

This piece in today's WaPo, Past Votes Dog Some Presidential Candidates, illustrates at least part of the reason it is difficult for legislators to be nominated by their party to run for the Presidency.

Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt & co. can criticize the Bush administration for the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and so forth, but then Dean can turn the tables on them, and blame them as well, since they all voted for those measures.

Presidential candidate John F. Kerry is bashing President Bush's policies on Iraq, education and civil liberties. What he rarely mentions, however, is that his Senate votes helped make all three possible.

The Massachusetts Democrat is not alone. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) -- who is calling Bush's Iraq policy a "miserable failure" -- led the House fight last year to allow the president to wage the war without the international help the lawmaker now demands. Gephardt, then the House Democratic leader, also voted for the USA Patriot Act, which expands the government's surveillance powers, and for Bush's No Child Left Behind education program. He often criticizes the policies now.

Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) is calling for Bush to enlist the help of the United Nations in Iraq, even though he, like Kerry and Gephardt, had the opportunity to vote against the war resolution and in support of one measure demanding U.N. involvement during last fall's congressional debate. Edwards is also calling for changes to the Patriot Act, for which he voted, and more funding for the education plan, which he voted to authorize. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) voted with Bush on all three, too.