Taking the high road runs risks

WASHINGTON -- What's the big insult in presidential politics these days? Republicans to Democrat Barack Obama: You voted your party line 97% of the time. Obama to Republican John McCain: You voted with President Bush 95%. So there.

Party loyalty is fair game in this unique contest. Both major parties picked reform-minded insurgents over more conventional candidates. The upshot is two candidates who are pledging open government, hammering at special interests, bragging about telling inconvenient truths and vowing to put national interests over partisan ones.

"They do not want to play the business-as-usual games in Washington," says Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who has worked on bills to improve government with both men. That appeals to voters, he says, but it's also "a dangerous road" because they're more easily accused of hypocrisy.

James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, also has worked closely with the two senators on ethics, finance and lobbying bills and says they are "legitimate leaders" in those areas. But he's skeptical about their promises and is trying to lure them to a forum this fall to explain them.

"They keep bashing lobbyists and the way Washington works," Thurber says. He wants them to be specific: "What's wrong and what would they do about it?"

The reform tradition

The two most famous reform presidents were Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt created the Food and Drug Administration, regulated railroads and dissolved monopolies. Wilson created the Federal Reserve and won passage of anti-trust and child-labor laws.

The political parallels this year are uncanny. John Milton Cooper, who wrote about the pair in The Warrior and The Priest, says Roosevelt was "a reformist president leading a conservative party" — a situation McCain would recognize — who relied on Democrats for many of his achievements. By contrast, Wilson built on his own party's reform mood. Obama is similarly "in sync with his party," Cooper says, and well positioned to win changes on health care and other issues.

One test for Obama and McCain will be how much they are perceived to rely on the Washington establishment. Nearly three-quarters in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last month said it is very or somewhat important to them that the pair want to curb lobbyist and insider influence.

Ornstein predicts they will "fail miserably" if they staff up with amateurs. Thurber says they'll have to deal with lobbyists and advocates — because "that's where the outside knowledge and information comes from."

So how independent are these insurgents? McCain has a long history of bucking his party. Some conservatives still are angry over his work with Democrats to cap political fundraising and spending, curb global warming and give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. McCain now uses those conflicts to draw a contrast. While he routinely risks party wrath, McCain says, "you won't often see" Obama take on special interests friendly to Democrats.

McCain has, however, toned down or reversed some stands that upset conservatives. Chief among them: his opposition to President Bush's 2001 tax cuts. He said then that he could not "in good conscience" support them because they mostly benefited "the most fortunate among us." Now he wants to extend them.

Obama, like McCain, has championed unpopular ethics and government reforms. He was booed recently at the National Education Association when he promoted merit pay for teachers. He angered some liberals by backing a surveillance bill that, among other things, gives legal immunity to phone companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Obama says McCain's straight-talk persona is no longer valid. He says McCain's support for a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax is "a pander" and he has caved to his party on taxes.

The two have credibility when it comes to pushing for clean, open government, but the campaign has highlighted some lapses as well.

McCain co-wrote the 2002 law that limits political fundraising and spending, and is one of a few senators who don't seek earmarks — spending projects that are targeted to a single beneficiary or that haven't competed for funds on merit. Earlier this year, McCain banned campaign aides from also lobbying. Several aides left, including his finance chair.

Credibility on the line

McCain has run into a few glitches related to his wife Cindy's wealth and business. News organizations and other watchdogs have pressed her to release her tax returns, which are separate from his, and examined whether the McCains have properly reimbursed her family company for political use of its jet.

In the Illinois Senate, Obama helped pass ethics and lobbying legislation and a law requiring videotaped confessions and interrogations in capital cases. In the U.S. Senate, he helped set up an online database of grants, contracts, earmarks and loans. He also co-wrote a law ending gifts from lobbyists and cut-rate trips on corporate jets.

Obama doesn't take donations from political action committees or federal lobbyists, but does take money from state lobbyists and employees of lobbying firms. He has put online several years of tax returns, the names of his "bundlers" or fundraisers, and lists of the earmarks he's requested. He also has co-sponsored a one-year moratorium on earmarks and isn't requesting any this year.

Obama's reformer credentials took a big hit when he rejected public financing and spending limits in order to raise and spend all he wants. But polls show few voters care.

Even Ornstein says Obama, given his fundraising prowess, did the right thing. The alternative, he says, would have amounted to "political malpractice."