Mcain: profile in courage - Skipping the vote on cloture for the stimulus package.

[Mass]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/177457.php

Profile In Courage?
02.07.08 -- 10:58AM
By Josh Marshall

There was a big stimulus bill vote last night. And the senators still in the presidential campaign were back in town to cast their votes. All except John McCain (from the AP, emphasis added) ...

Senators in both parties prepared to greet the presidential race's front-runners Wednesday, as McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., left the campaign trail to vote for a proposed $205 billion economic stimulus package. McCain returned to Washington but made an eleventh-hour decision to skip the vote, aides to his campaign said.

Eleventh hour decision not to show up for the key vote even though he was actually in Washington?

Tapper, at ABC, says that his vote wouldn't have changed the outcome and that McCain supports the Pelosi/Bush bill from the House. But it's still not clear to me what the '11th hour' decision means. He's in the city; why not vote?

Late Update: Here's the story on just what issues were at stake. My hunch is that looking toward the November election didn't want his hands on the Republican blockage of the expanded bill.