WASHINGTON - John McCain said he's ready to bring his reform crusade back to the US Senate. But is the Senate ready for him?
It's going to be interesting, and it's going to be awkward, and not just because the Republican-controlled chamber has a history of hostility to the Arizona senator's reform message. Even before McCain criticized the Senate as a bedfellow of special interests, the GOP Senate did not much like the maverick messenger.
But by winning seven presidential primaries, a passionate national following, and the kind of media attention most members of Congress only dream of, McCain returns from the campaign trail with a stature and leverage likely to enlarge his influence in the Senate and earn him new, albeit grudging respect from his colleagues.
''McCain didn't fit well in the Senate before, and now he's coming back, having grown, to an institution where he still won't fit,'' said Thomas Mann, who directs government studies at Brookings Institution. ''He will have enhanced standing, but not because his colleagues like him any better.''
Ironically, the candidate who made criticism of the ''iron triangle of lobbyists, legislation, and money'' a campaign mantra may find that his clout has grown most among the corporate interests doing business with the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chairs.
''The business community really respects power and accomplishment, and their lobbyists, I think, will now treat McCain as a big man and an important fellow, even if his colleagues in the Senate don't,'' said Frank Mankiewicz, a longtime corporate and political consultant in Washington. ''They are all going to want him at their annual dinner.''
As he suspended his presidential campaign Thursday and previewed his return to the Senate, McCain told reporters in Sedona, Ariz., he planned to carry on his efforts to improve Social Security, Medicare, and the tax system, and would fight ''to save the government, to give the government back to the people.''
Proponents of overhauling campaign-finance laws said they hoped McCain's success in connecting voters to their issue will force the Senate's GOP leaders to soften their resistance and pass a bill before their most vulnerable members face re-election.
''McCain is in the driver's seat, and what happens in the months ahead depends on how he decides to handle it,'' said Meredith McGehee, legislative director for Common Cause, a lobbying group that has supported the campaign-finance bills coauthored by McCain and Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat. ''McCain is a very unpredictable guy, and we are all in for quite a ride.''
Mark Buse, staff director of the Senate Commerce Committee, said McCain is ''preserving all of his options'' and intends to revive the campaign-finance bill after consulting with Feingold. Meanwhile, Buse said, McCain will campaign inside and outside the Senate on a wide reform agenda.
''He has pledged to come back 150 percent, be more aggressive than ever, and have a good time,'' Buse said. ''There will be more straight talk, just in a different place.''
Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who made his own failed bid for the GOP nomination, said McCain may get a cool reception because his ''straight talk'' offended senators.
''There is animosity and there are hard feelings among some of his colleagues because John basically branded them as part of the iron triangle,'' Hatch said. ''There are a lot of honest, decent people here who considered that demagoguery. I myself found it irritating.''
Hatch said McCain will not be ostracized from the club, and the careers of several senators were not damaged by their failed presidential campaigns. They include Democrats Joseph Biden of Delaware, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, and Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana. Some analysts said Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy proved what a valuable legislator he was by running a bad race for chief executive in 1980.
McCain is perhaps best compared to another breakthrough candidate, Senator Gary Hart, the Colorado Democrat who ran an insurgent's race right up to the 1984 convention that nominated Walter Mondale. Hart battled for ''new ideas'' and returned to the Senate. His 1987 White House bid was cut short by disclosure of an extramarital affair.
Like Hart, McCain may find that with his newfound fame and independent appeal, his small circle of friends widens. ''We'll welcome him back,'' gushed Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Senate minority leader.
Ditto, said majority leader Trent Lott. ''We left the light on for John McCain,'' Lott said in a television interview. ''We thought he'd probably be coming back.''
But keeping the light on isn't the same as giving McCain the keys to the house. John Czwartacki, Lott's spokesman, said the majority leader embraces McCain's campaign theme of overhauling taxes, education, and Social Security. But Lott is not convinced that on the ''narrow issue'' of campaign finance, any minds or votes in the Senate have changed. That's particularly true of the McCain-Feingold bill, which would ban unlimited, unregulated contributions by corporations, unions, and individuals to political parties. Hatch says the legislation has ''no chance'' of being enacted this session.
Feingold disagreed. McCain's successes prove the climate has changed, he said, and the GOP majority in the Senate will be in peril if its leadership tries to crush their bill again. Last year, Lott and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, McCain's chief nemeses on the issue, stalled the legislation with a filibuster.
Gary Bauer, another failed GOP candidate, said Republican party elders should not become complacent about polls that show overhauling the campaign-finance laws is a low priority for voters.
''The average Joe won't say he is worried about campaign-finance reform, but believe me, there is a deep sense in the country that big money and big shots get what they want in Washington and the little guy gets the short end of the stick,'' Bauer said.
