It's become clear that one of Sen. Specter's main arguments against his primary challenger, Congressman Joe Sestak, will be "Sestak missed a bunch of votes in the House." His campaign has even put up a "No Show Joe" website, and Specter recently "compared Rep. Joe Sestak’s missed votes in Congress to going AWOL while serving in the Navy." (Seriously, he said that.)
I fully expect that Specter will spend a big portion of his nearly $8.7 million* trying to define Sestak as a congressman who missed a bunch of votes. So I was curious to find out just what these missed Sestak votes were about, and if any of them were even close. I went through a handy Washington Post database that shows all of Congressman Sestak's missed votes. Many of them were things like commemorative resolutions or renaming post offices. I found a total of 68 potentially significant votes on things such as appropriations (spending) bills, other bills, amendments, and procedural votes.