President Obama comes to Boulder today to campaign for the youth vote based on a bill he skipped the vote for five years when he was a US Senator. In a case of delicious irony, he missed the vote five years ago to campaign for President.
Obama is pushing legislation that would stop a student loan rate hike, hoping to score some points with a young population where he has seen his numbers slip. Unfortunately, there aren't many political points left to score after Mitt Romney said he supported the legislation as well.
Reports Politico's Byron Tau:
In 2007, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama missed two votes on the student loan interest bill that he now wants Congress to extend.
Obama twice skipped the Senate vote on the College Cost Reduction and Access Act when the bill came to the Senate floor first in July and again in September of 2007, according to public records.
The bill, introduced by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and signed into law by President George W. Bush, first cleared the Senate in July on a 78 to 18 vote, with Obama as one of only four senators to abstain. Obama did not cast a vote again in September, after the House and Senate had ironed out different versions of the bill. He was on the conference committee assigned to merge the House and Senate versions of the bill.
As Obama is doing whatever it takes to move the news away from employment and gas prices, even pushing bills he skipped the vote on four years ago, we thought we'd take the opportunity to remind our readers how little Obama has done on the number one issue to voters, jobs.
Since Obama took office in January 2009, Bureau of Labor Statistics data for Colorado shows employment is down by 33,290, as of March. With a net negative jobs record in Colorado, no wonder Obama is trying to push the conversation elsewhere.
But, before Obama tries to change the conversation to another topic he might want to make sure he has an actual record to campaign on.