Obama's Alliance With McCain, And How It All Fell Apart
"A year into his tenure on Capitol Hill, Barack Obama (D-Ill.) approached John McCain on the Senate floor to propose the two work together on a lobbying and ethics reform bill," the Washington Post recalls. "The four-term Arizona Republican, 25 years Obama's senior, quickly saw a willing apprentice to help shake up the way business was done on Capitol Hill."
"I like him; he's probably got a great future. We can do some work together," McCain confided to his top staffer.
Instead, what began as a promising collaboration between two men bent on burnishing their reformist credentials collapsed after barely a week. The McCain-Obama relationship came undone amid charges and countercharges, all aired publicly two years ago in an exchange of stark and angry letters. Obama questioned whether McCain sided with GOP leaders rather than searching for a bipartisan solution; McCain accused Obama of "typical rhetorical gloss" and "self interested partisan posturing" by a newcomer seeking to ingratiate himself with party leaders."Please be assured I won't make the same mistake again," McCain wrote Obama on Feb. 6, 2006.
It was the first, and only, time the two ever tried extensively working together.
More than two years later, with McCain and Obama potentially poised to go head to head in a presidential campaign with stakes far greater than regulating who picks up steakhouse tabs, the reform fight has emerged as a looking-glass moment of what a fall campaign could resemble.
McCain's backers view it as emblematic of Obama's ability to talk grand ideas and aspirations, but also of his ultimate failure to produce substantive results. Obama's supporters contend that the moment was vintage Obama, with the newcomer defusing the feud with a cool demeanor that allowed him to claim the high ground while rolling up his sleeves to eventually help pass a broader ethics overhaul bill in August 2007.
Read the full article here.
Washington Post | March 31, 2008 01:45 PM