There was an interesting argument on the Senate floor yesterday in which Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) debated Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on the budget process. McCaskill believes, as both parties used to agree, that there should be a conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate budget plans; Lee believes there should be no budget talks until Democrats agree to let Republicans hold the debt ceiling hostage in the fall.
This was all relatively routine, albeit exasperating, until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) jumped in on the fight -- taking McCaskill's side.
Pay particular attention to the clip around the 9:25 mark, and you'll notice that McCain not only disagrees with his far-right Republican colleague, he also makes Mike Lee look like a fool for failing to understand the basics of what a conference committee even is.
Watching the video, though, got me thinking about John McCain and his actions of late, which I must confess are not what I've come to expect of him. As part of this same budget dispute, for example, McCain upbraided Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), too, as we discussed the other day.
It's not just the budget fight, either. On immigration, McCain has worked in good faith to advance a comprehensive reform bill. On national security, while many of his allies were condemning President Obama's speech on terrorism yesterday, McCain issued a statement that was cautiously supportive. On filibuster reform, which McCain opposes, the Arizona Republican has nevertheless suggested that Senate Democrats would have a legitimate reason to pursue the "nuclear option," given his party's tactics.
There is, of course, a substantive angle to all of this that clearly matters. As Greg Sargent explained well yesterday, many of today's more extreme Republican senators have "decided that they no longer have any obligation to engage in basic governing," making it a welcome sight that some of the party's old guard push back. It suggests, Greg said, "that allowing the Tea Party trio to continue calling the shots may be increasingly untenable."
Here's hoping that continues.
But on a purely political note, it does surprise me a bit to see McCain playing such a constructive role.
As long-time McCain watchers may recall, the senator has gone through several iterations. He was, for many years, a rather predictable conservative Republican lawmaker. After the Keating Five scandal, McCain gave himself a makeover and became a more reform-minded "maverick."
By the time of his presidential campaign 13 years ago, McCain had positioned himself as decidedly moderate, became a media darling, and even opposed much of the Bush/Cheney agenda in early 2001.
As the Republican Party moved sharply to the right, and then even further to the right, McCain gave himself another makeover in advance of his 2008 campaign, rejecting nearly everything he'd said and done in the preceding seven years. The "maverick" was gone, replaced with a bitter and reflexive partisan.
It's far too premature to say McCain is reinventing himself all over again. Indeed, listen to him talk for two minutes on Benghazi and it's clear the senator is still quite capable of jumping off a far-right cliff. Also take a look at his votes on gun reforms -- he's become a staunch NRA ally -- that bear no resemblance to positions he took during his "maverick" days. [Update: I remembered a key incorrectly, and McCain actually supported the Manchin/Toomey background-check compromise. This should be counted on the pro-Maverick side of the equation.]
But having said that, McCain has taken steps in recent months that are out of character for him -- in a good way.
Time will tell whether this is a fleeting shift, but my colleague Anthony Terrell flagged this item for the other day, and in the larger context, it's suggests McCain isn't quite the same politician he seemed to be a year ago.
President Barack Obama has an important new ally as emboldened Republicans work to derail his agenda: John McCain.
The shift is striking: The 2008 rivals never got along throughout Obama's first term in office. McCain has been Obama's chief tormentor on issues ranging from the budget to Benghazi, tartly saying in late 2010 that the two men had "no relationship."
Yet during one of Obama's toughest times as president, there was McCain, sitting down last week with him in the Oval Office for a private strategy session. At the urging of new White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, who has sought better ties with Republicans, Obama has had more substantive discussions with McCain in the past five months than he did in his first four years in office, according to associates of both men. Suddenly, the two are working together on issues ranging from immigration to the deficit.
"I'm getting nervous," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain's closest friend in the Senate. "I told Denis McDonough, 'I don't know what you've done: You've hijacked him.'"
We'll see how long this lasts, but let's not forget that it was also McCain who chided some of his right-wing colleagues as "wacko birds" in March.