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So much of politics is just showing up

The Obama administration keeps preparing national security information for prominent Republican senators - and they keep failing to show up to hear it.
Republican 2014 - 10/02/2013
From left, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speak to the media after the Senate voted to pass the continuing resolution on...
In retrospect, Republicans probably shouldn't have made committee hearing attendance one of the centerpieces of their 2014 election messages.

Kentucky. Sen Rand Paul has skipped most Homeland Security hearings since 2014, a review of videos and documents related to the hearings show. BuzzFeed News was only able to verify Paul's attendance at five out of 73 hearings since last January, less than ten percent overall.

No, really, Republicans probably shouldn't have made committee hearing attendance one of the centerpieces of their 2014 election messages.

While Sen. Marco Rubio was on a big fundraising swing through California, he missed a top secret intelligence briefing on ISIS from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and two closed Intelligence Committee briefings from that period, according to records. [...] The Intelligence Committee also shows two closed briefings from the week in which Rubio was on his fundraising haul.

Seriously, Republicans probably shouldn't have made committee hearing attendance one of the centerpieces of their 2014 election messages.

Ted Cruz thunders about what he calls a "fundamentally unserious" U.S. defense policy, but when he had a chance to weigh in during Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, he rarely showed up. Cruz, who announced last week he's running for president, has the committee's worst attendance record -- by far. The Texas Republican attended just three of the panel's 16 public hearings so far this year, according to a POLITICO review of transcripts from full committee hearings.

As we talked about last week, in the closing days of the 2014 campaign cycle, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) traveled to North Carolina in the hopes of defeating then-Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). The Republican specifically went after the Democrat for having missed some Senate Armed Services Committee hearings. 
 
"Here we are with Americans being beheaded, and Sen. Hagan doesn't even show up for the briefing," McCain griped.
 
The same week, the Arizona Republican traveled to New Hampshire to complain about Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's (D-N.H.) imperfect attendance at Senate Armed Services Committee meetings. "I don't see her at very many of the hearings," McCain said, citing this as proof that the Democrat is not a "serious member" of the panel.
 
To reiterate what we discussed, Republicans can't pick and choose -- it's tough to tell voters that committee hearings are critically important if a Democrat misses some, but they're largely irrelevant if a Republican misses most.