McCain/Obama Images

One year ago I think that John McCain was just a member of the greatest deliberative body in the world, the United States Senate. He had just taken over as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the Senate following Senator John Warner of Virginia having to leave that post due to Senate Republican Conference term limit rules for chairman/ranking member of a standing committee. He had an opportunity to really make a mark on the steering of the war and let his opinions be heard through that forum.

John McCain had been in the Senate since his election in 1987 and what major legislative accomplishment did he achieve? I think that we can all think about the Campaign Finance Reform legislation that he helped sheppard into law with Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). For years he was maybe one of the "forgotten Senators." Following the Keating Five scandal in the early 1990's he did not appear into the limelight until the 2000 Presidential Campaign and following his defeat in the primary to President George W. Bush he once again faded back into the Senate woodwork.

All of sudden he decided to run for the Oval office again. He emerged back into the limelight and once all thought that his campaign was dead he revived it and became the Republican front-runner in the 2008 Presidential Election. The public is still skeptical, I believe, of Senator McCain and where does he really stand on the issues in the past? in the present? and in the future? Do we have a concrete answer?

One year ago Barack Obama was still a newcomer to the United States Senate. He had been in the Senate for three years and really had not secured any major committee assignments and had not authored any substantive legislation. We really did not know very much about Barack Obama. He had been overshadowed by figures such as Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer, and others who sought the limelight and gained the attention of the American public much more effectively than Barack Obama.

I think that a question that few people in the media and the American public has asked themselves is: Where would Barack Obama be if Alan Keyes had not dropped out of the Illinois Senate Race just weeks before the election due to scandal? This is a worthwhile question because maybe Barack Obama would have not even won a seat in the Senate. Always asking the what if question is not always helpful but it certainly gives you something to think about?

Barack Obama and John McCain both emerged as somebody during the run-up to the election. I think that we need to look at the Senate record and see where they have stood in the past in conparison to where they say that they stand today. I am sure that it is different because they are now running a national campaign instead of playing the election game for their respective states. The media has captured the here and now but I think that we need to look at the past to see the record that both of these Senators have accumulated in their Senate careers.