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Marco Rubio’s absences from the U.S. Senate floor during his presidential campaign have earned him the nickname ‘no show Rubio,’ but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both had far higher rates of legislative truancy while they ran for the White House in 2007 and 2008.
A DailyMail.com analysis of Senate roll call records found that Rubio has missed 44.6 per cent of his votes since April, the month when he launched his Oval Office bid. That includes a 53.8 per cent absence rate in the third quarter of 2015, from July to September.
In the same quarter of 2007, as he frequently left Washington, D.C. for the Democratic primary’s early voting states, Obama missed 56.3 of his votes.
The final quarter of 2007, leading up to the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary, saw the future president post even more dismal numbers – missing 89.4 per cent of his opportunities to shout ‘aye’ or ‘nay.’
Clinton, in hot pursuit of Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, missed 83.5 per cent that quarter.
Throughout the months he was running for president in 2008, Obama skipped 64.3 per cent of his votes as an Illinois U.S. Senator.
Cliton’s record was worse still in 2008 – a 68.4 per cent absence rate – through her withdrawal from the race on June 8 of that year.
Rubio has drawn criticism from his fellow Republicans over his voting record this fall. Front-runner Donald Trump tweeted last month that he was a ‘lightweight senator with the worst voting record in Senate.’
Politifact.com rated that claim ‘mostly true,’ noting that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had a slightly worse record when their entire Senate careers are compared.
Rubio was the only senator to skip last week’s vote on the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which passed 73 to 26.
He was campaigning in New Hampshire that day.
In a similar moment in 2008, Obama stayed in the Granite State instead of returning to Washington for a Senate vote on a resolution declaring Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a ‘terrorist group.’
He later hammered Clinton for voting ‘yes.’ Obama’s campaign claimed the vote was called at the last minute.
But Democratic aides to senators loyal to Clinton told reporters at the time that senators had been given a day’s notice.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Rubio said voting, by itself, is a poor proxy for job performance in Congress.
‘Voting is not the only part of the Senate job,’ he said. ‘I mean, the most important thing a senator does is constituent service. We are still involved in looking out for Florida’s issues.’
He added, correctly, that his absence rate is ‘lower than what other people have missed.’