When we checked in last November, John McCain had missed the most votes of all the Democratic and Republican Senators running for President (there were quite a few back then), and Senators Obama and Clinton had missed the fewest.

So where do we stand now? The rankings are the same, and all have obviously increased the percentage of missed votes since then. But McCain has now become the most absent of all Senators, not just those campaigning for president. In fact, he has now missed more votes than Senator Tim Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in late 2006 and couldn't vote because of his medical condition.

Here's the attendance record (the percentage represents votes missed):

• John McCain: 58.4%
• Barack Obama: 40.2%
• Hillary Clinton: 29.7%

No surprise, the two candidates that have missed the most are also the likely presidential nominees. There are few professions that allow you to completely neglect your current job while you spend two years trying to get a promotion, but politics is apparently one of them. If a candidate really wants to win, he/she is going to have to skip a few votes. Fair enough.

But McCain has had a lock on the nomination for a while now. I can understand Clinton and Obama spending all their time in Pennsylvania or Indiana--to do otherwise would be campaign suicide. But what's McCain's excuse?