President Obama has long spoken of the need to bridge partisan divides. I will bet that in this national economic emergency, one of his chief Republican Senate partners will be John McCain.
In McCain's gracious and genuinely moving concession speech, we finally got a glimpse of the leader that McCain has been at periods throughout his career: a man who indeed often broke with his own party when he felt it was the right thing to do; a man of decency who often reached across the aisle and counted many senate Democrats like Joe Biden as his friends; and a man who could have won the election had he run that sort of campaign.
McCain said, "Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."
McCain's name is on several landmark bills with the names of leading Democrats, including the McCain-Kennedy bill on immigration reform and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. And he worked tirelessly with John Kerry to resolve the issue of Vietnam-era prisoners of war and servicemen and women listed as missing in action.
Until his handlers got the better of him, McCain evidently wanted to run as a moderate -- as the Republican antidote to George W. Bush. He wanted to name former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania or Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, but the base vetoed that. He ended up trying to ingratiate himself -- and not very convincingly -- with the very people on the far right who destroyed his candidacy in 2000. I suspect that he will spend the rest of his days regretting that he didn't stick to his guns.
Barack Obama has surely reached out to him already, and he will continue to do so, tapping McCain's self-interest in redeeming something of the senator that he once was. What better symbol and substance of the need for this unifying Democratic president to bring some key Republicans into his governing coalition?
Some courtesies to key Republicans will not require Obama to give up anything of his core program. His signature as a state legislator was to be a unifier, as a progressive, and he will build on that talent as president.
When the recounts in Alaska and Minnesota and the runoff in Georgia are finally finished, Democrats will have between 57 and 59 seats. The idea that Democrats need 60 seats in the Senate for a working majority, because that's what it takes to stop a filibuster, has become conventional media wisdom. Mostly, this premise is wrong.
We don't have a parliamentary system. Democrats don't always vote with their caucus, and neither do Republicans. A 60-vote majority is built on shifting coalitions. And the dynamics are entirely different depending on which party holds the White House. George W. Bush and his floor leaders in the Congress wielded an unusually nasty whip, which rankled Republican moderates. Now, it's payback time.
Several Republican senators who sometimes voted with Bush were not exactly enthusiastic about Bush's policies. They were often torn between their own moderate views and demands of party loyalty. These include Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, who had National Journal "liberal" ratings of 48.8 and 48.2 respectively, just below Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and just above Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Candidates to reject a filibuster also include Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and even more conservative Republicans such as Richard Lugar of Indiana, who both have been good bipartisans given different presidential leadership. And that also describes John McCain. He may have voted with Bush 90 percent of the time, but on key issues like torture, he was willing to oppose Bush.
Conversely, President Obama will occasionally lose a conservative Democrat or two, depending on the issue. But I would be extremely surprised if the Obama program is blocked by Senate filibusters, especially given the economic emergency.
Imagine that it's February, and unemployment is 11 percent and rising. Senators' phones are ringing off the hook, from mayors and governors and business leaders begging for the government to do something. Obama sends up a $500 billion emergency-aid package. Can you imagine Susan Collins and John McCain filibustering to block that bill? I can't.
And the more convincing a leader Obama becomes and the more that he works with Republican moderates, the less political appetite there will be to use parliamentary maneuvers to block him. Americans want this president to succeed.
Nobody said it better than John McCain: "I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president." To some, that may seem just typical concession rhetoric, but to this viewer it felt like more. Obama needs to take McCain at his word -- and to appeal to the better angels of all the Republican mavericks. Getting to 60 will not be such a stretch.
