Swifters in Senate bamboozle Kerry.

Kerry decided late Monday to cancel campaign stops in New Mexico scheduled for yesterday and flew back to the capital, arriving at a deserted Reagan National Airport at 2 a.m. The senator from Massachusetts wanted to register his vote in support of an amendment that would have guaranteed federal funding for veterans' health care.

In the end, however, Kerry never got to vote. Republicans declined to bring the Democratic-sponsored amendment to the floor while the candidate was here. So Kerry hung around for a while but then headed back to the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Republicans were mulling what to do.

In between these events came a cascade of blame. Kerry's camp angrily charged that GOP leaders had used procedural maneuvers to shelve the vote in an attempt to disrupt his campaign and deny him an issue he has championed. Republicans shot back that Kerry, who has had long absences from the Senate during his campaign, was using the issue to grandstand.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61940-2004Jun22.html