Appearing this morning on WLS Radio's "Don Wade & Roma Morning Show," ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopolous said that John McCain's record of "cooperation with Democrats" is going to be "one of his strongest selling points in the fall." Stephanopolous' remark came in response to host Don Wade's assertion that McCain "has a bad reputation with some Republicans because he's reached so many times across the aisle." (You can listen to the full segment here).

Such characterizations of McCain's legislative record fit into the common media narrative about the Arizona Senator: that he's an unreliable conservative who regularly bucks his party on the issues of the day.

Of course, this "maverick" image -- peddled again and again by media figures far and wide -- is bunk. The most recent evidence comes from an Arizona Republic examination of McCain's last 10 years in the Senate. From their article yesterday, headlined "In tight Senate votes, McCain not a maverick":

[A]n Arizona Republic analysis of his Senate votes on the most divided issues in the past decade shows that McCain almost never thwarted his party's objectives.

The presumptive Republican nominee arguably cast the decisive vote 14 times since 1999 to ensure Republicans got their way, and he had five other close cases where his vote may have made a difference, Senate records show. By comparison, McCain effectively handed Democrats a win on roll-call votes four times in the same period. On one of those occasions, Republicans could still have won if Vice President Dick Cheney had cast a tie-breaking vote.

David Brock and Paul Waldman also highlight McCain's highly selective disloyalty in their book Free Ride: John McCain and the Media:

The truth is that McCain's breaks from the Republican Party line are few and far between. According to Congressional Quarterly's "party unity" ratings, since he came to the Senate in 1989, there have been only three years in which McCain voted with his party less than 80 percent of the time. When he has gone against the party line -- such as on campaign finance reform, global warming, or tobacco regulations -- McCain has taken a position that was overwhelmingly popular with the public, meaning that when he takes a "maverick" stance, he's gaining support with the public -- and hardly taking a political risk.

So if Stephanopolous (or any of the others) pops up on your local radio station at 8 a.m. and starts talking about all of McCain's "cooperation with Democrats" over the years -- don't buy it.

(Transcript after the jump ...)

DON WADE: I have another question. One of the main thrusts of Barack Obama, were he to be chosen as the nominee, is his position as a post-partisan. He gets people together. But he has little legislative evidence that he has done such.

John McCain, on the other hand, he's worked with Russ Feingold, he's worked with Ted Kennedy. In fact, he has a bad reputation with some Republicans because he's reached so many times across the aisle.

So doesn't this deflate the value of some of Barack Obama's selling points.

STEPHANOPOLOUS:Well, it's a counter to it. I don't think there's any question about that. And it's interesting, we're seeing a very classic presidential campaign strategy by John McCain: hug your base during the primaries, run to the center in the general election campaign. You didn't hear as much during the primaries about all his cooperation with the Democrats. But you're right, it will be one of his strongest selling points in the fall.