KHOW's Caplis made unsubstantiated claim about Obama's "present" votes as state senator, repeated "born alive" smear

Summary: Dan Caplis of 630 KHOW-AM asserted without substantiation that as an Illinois state senator, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama "voted 'present' more than 200 times, I think it was 3 or 400 times." Additionally, Caplis again parroted his frequent smear regarding Obama's vote on Illinois "born alive" legislation, claiming that Obama "shut[] down a law that would have protected babies born alive after an abortion failed."

On his September 2 630 KHOW-AM broadcast, co-host Dan Caplis claimed that as a state senator in Illinois, Sen. Barack Obama "voted 'present' more than 200 times, I think it was 3 or 400 times -- I'll have to double check -- but voted 'present,' and his big signal accomplishment was, you know, shutting down a law that would have protected babies born alive after an abortion failed." Caplis cited no evidence for the "voted 'present' " remark, although according to a December 20, 2007, New York Times article, Obama cast a "present" vote "nearly 130 times as a state senator," or about half of what Caplis claimed.

Further, Caplis' remark about the "born alive" legislation repeated a smear he has made numerous times in apparent reference to Obama's opposition as an Illinois state senator to bills seeking to amend the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. As Media Matters for America repeatedly has noted -- but Caplis omitted -- Obama and other opponents said the legislation posed a threat to abortion rights and was unnecessary because, they said, Illinois law already prohibited the conduct that the bills supposedly addressed.

While Caplis provided no substantiation for his remark about Obama's "present" votes as a state senator, or any context for those votes, the Times article noted that the votes had become a campaign issue and that "[a]lthough a present vote is not unusual in Illinois, Mr. Obama's use of it is being raised as he tries to distinguish himself as a leader who will take on the tough issues, even if it means telling people the 'hard truths' they do not want to hear." The article further paraphrased unnamed Obama "aides and some allies" as stating that "Obama cast 4,000 votes in the Illinois Senate and used the present vote to protest bills that he believed had been drafted unconstitutionally or as part of a broader legislative strategy."

Caplis also omitted that, as Media Matters for America has noted, PolitiFact.com quoted Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois-Springfield, as saying of Obama's "present" votes: "Everyone I've spoken to who's familiar with this, including lobbyists and people who are engaged in opposition research, say the number of times he voted present on a proportional basis was probably a little less than average."

From the September 2 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Caplis & Silverman Show:

CAPLIS: It's just a matter of fact, [caller]. Barack Obama, he got elected, you know, president of the law review. Fine. Never authored a single significant, scholarly legal piece. He became an attorney. Fine. Never handled a significant big case. Worked for Tony Rezko, who's now a convicted felon, you know, and did that house deal with Rezko. But he never handled a single significant big case. State senator in Illinois, voted "present" more than 200 times, I think it was 3 or 400 times -- I'll have to double check -- but voted "present," and his big signal accomplishment was, you know, shutting down a law that would have protected babies born alive after an abortion failed. U.S. Senate -- he gets to the U.S. Senate long enough for a cup of coffee and starts runnin' for president. Look at Sarah Palin's record. Just look at what she's done at every level. Very significant stuff.

—B.J.M.