McCain goes from heckler to deal maker

The Long Run

By David D. Kirkpatrick

updated 2:31 p.m. ET July 21, 2008

Senator John McCain was all but a sworn enemy of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader.

Mr. Lott had quashed Mr. McCain’s most cherished legislative goals. And, worse, Mr. McCain believed that in the 2000 Republican primaries, Mr. Lott had spread rumors about his colleague’s mental stability on behalf of his rival for the nomination, George W. Bush.

But when Mr. Bush turned on Mr. Lott in 2002, helping to push him out of the leadership over a racially insensitive remark, Mr. McCain saw a shared grievance and found an opportunity. He leapt to Mr. Lott’s defense, urging Republicans to stick by him.

“He said, ‘I know how you are feeling; you have been treated unfairly,’ ” Mr. Lott recalled. “I am a grateful guy, and I will never forget it.” A legendary dealmaker with a deep store of chits, Mr. Lott became a valuable ally to his former foe, backing him in public debates and less visible Senate intrigues.

Their alliance was just one step in the political reinvention of Mr. McCain, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Previously a marginal player better known for heckling the Senate than for influencing it, Mr. McCain returned from the 2000 campaign with a new national reputation and a new political sophistication.

Over the next eight years, he mastered the art of political triangulation — variously teaming up with Mr. Lott against the president or the new Republican leaders, with Democrats against Republicans, and with the president against the Democrats — to become perhaps the chamber’s most influential member.

“He was looked upon as the magic ingredient in any legislative deal; the addition of John McCain was going to greatly improve its chances of success,” said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist who studies the Senate.

Former Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader until 2004, agreed. With the possible exception of the two party leaders, he said, “I can’t think of many senators more influential.” Mr. Daschle said that Mr. McCain’s power easily surpassed that of Mr. Lott’s successor as leader, Bill Frist, because many senators discounted Mr. Frist as the White House’s agent.

To partisans on either side, Mr. McCain’s path could be puzzling, even infuriating. On the defining issue of the Iraq war, he hammered both sides: the White House for its execution of the conflict and the Democrats for their opposition. On immigration, he joined the Democrats and the White House to battle his own party. And to the Republican leaders, he was a serial turncoat on other domestic matters, marching at the head of a Democratic column into fights over tax cuts, campaign finance restrictions, Alaskan oil drilling, access to generic drugs, gun-show sales, pollution caps, the 9/11 commission and the use of torture.

“I returned to the Senate with greater influence than before I ran, and I used that influence to work with senators on both sides of the aisle,” Mr. McCain said in an e-mail message. “I don’t believe in hoarding political capital just for the sake of possessing it.”

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Now his Senate record itself is up for debate in the presidential race. Mr. McCain’s supporters argue that he demonstrated the kind of bipartisan bridge-building that his Democratic rival for president, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, has often pledged but seldom displayed. Democrats counter that Mr. McCain, of Arizona, was a fickle gadfly who ultimately traded his independence to pander to the right, in particular by pledging this year to retain tax cuts he once faulted as favors to the rich.

“You couldn’t tell which John McCain would come to work on any given day,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat close to Mr. Obama.

Mr. McCain’s friends say his record reflects his singular personality — a reverence for principle and a willingness to change, a drive to solve problems and an impulse for mischief. But they agree that a very different John McCain returned from his first presidential race to become a central player in almost every high-profile debate of the Bush administration.

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“John McCain prior to 2000 would not be known for his legislative skills or achievements,” said John Weaver, a former McCain adviser. “He voted with his party, and people ran to him on national security. But being the swing guy after 2000, he knew his turf was valuable, and he could use it to achieve things.”

He learned how to play the game, said Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska. “He is a lot more savvy than a lot of people realize — targeted, tactical, strategic — and sometimes only he knows what his real objective is,” Mr. Nelson said.

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