Also In This Issue Related stories are available to subscribers only: Congress: Surrogate Stumpers Related Resources On NationalJournal.com Poll Track: National Polling On WH 2008 · Ad Spotlight: WH 2008 Ad Archives · National Journal On Air: Q&A With Barack Obama (11/8/07) · National Journal On Air: Q&A With John McCain (10/12/07) · Insider Interview: Q&A With Hillary Clinton (2/2/07) · Well-Read Wonk: Books By 2008 WH Candidates · Off Message: "Obama Lacks Yolks" (11/2/07) · PolitiScope: "Painting By Numbers" (11/1/07) · Off To The Races: "Victory Scenarios " (10/2/07) · On The Trail: "Is Hillary Clinton Too Polarizing?" (9/19/07) · National Journal Cover Story: "Heir Unapparent" (9/28/07) [an error occurred while processing this directive]

By Brian Friel, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Nov. 9, 2007

On a Friday afternoon in late March, senators were trapped at the Capitol as they considered amendment after amendment on the floor in the annual "vote-a-rama" that accompanies approval of the congressional budget resolution. It was pure tedium. The amendment to provide a deficit-neutral reserve fund for protecting state flexibility in Medicaid? Rejected. The amendment to repeal Section 13203 of the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act? Rejected. And so on.

Between votes, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., restlessly paced one of the ornately tiled hallways outside the Senate chamber. It was one of his rare moments alone since announcing his presidential candidacy the month before. As Obama talked into the cellphone glued to his ear, he occasionally looked out a window facing the Capitol's west porch, from which one could draw a line a mile and a half up Pennsylvania Avenue, past the federal bureaucracy's monolithic office buildings, straight to the White House. President Bush was there, in the Diplomatic Reception Room, exercising a power that he alone possesses: threatening to veto an Iraq war funding bill that the House was debating on the other side of the Rotunda from Obama.

Obama is merely one of 535 members who cast votes. He hopes to become, like Bush, one of one. To move up the avenue, though, he and the other presidential hopefuls who serve in Congress face numerous inherent stumbling blocks on Capitol Hill. The congressional press corps constantly chases them down narrow corridors with few escape routes, staking them out at every turn and watching their every move. Tiptoeing around fellow White House competitors can require fancy footwork. Votes they cast -- and votes they miss -- provide opponents with political fodder, while neglecting committee hearings can leave them open to charges of blowing off the nation's business. But every moment they're stuck on the Hill is time lost on the campaign trail.

Legislative work also provides opportunities, of course. The presidential contenders can deliver floor speeches and introduce bills to score political points and signal to the electorate how they would govern. Yet even while making the most of those benefits, the candidates must still deal with the constant back-and-forth between Washington and Iowa, Washington and New Hampshire, and Washington and everywhere but Washington.

"It's very difficult to balance the two because you need to be out on the trail often, if not constantly," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who recently ended his presidential bid, told National Journal. "Particularly for me, where we didn't have enough resources to get a private jet, you end up traveling commercial and that eats a lot more time up. It makes it very difficult to get here for the votes and then get out in the places you need to go to."

In other words, life on the Hill for the presidential contenders can be a real drag. "It's clearly easier if you're not there," said former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., who ran for the 1984 Democratic nomination as a senator and the 1988 nomination as a free man.

In the wide-open 2008 presidential race, a remarkable number of lawmakers -- six senators and four House members -- threw their hats into the ring, despite the fact that in all of U.S. history, only three sitting members of Congress have been elected president: Rep. James Garfield, R-Ohio, in 1880, Sen. Warren Harding, R-Ohio, in 1920, and Sen. John F. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1960. (None of them lived out a term in office.)

Graphic: Vote Skippers Members of Congress running for president face a juggling act. They must divide their time between managing a campaign and continuing to do their day job. Here's a look at how many votes each member missed.

The current crop includes some of the leading White House contenders -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Obama -- plus some facing longer odds: Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

Although Obama had a moment to himself outside the Senate chamber back in March, such peace and quiet is definitely fleeting. More typically, when the presidential wannabes are on the Hill, they are at the center of a swirling vortex of ravenous reporters with digital recorders running, gawking tourists pointing fingers and snapping pictures, and anxious aides juggling piles of paper and scrolling through BlackBerry messages.

Entourage Politics
Even some committee chairmen can walk the Capitol's halls unrecognized, but Clinton, Obama, and McCain are the focus of attention wherever they go. At any press conference they hold with other lawmakers, most of the questions go to them. If they take the elevator that connects the Capitol subway to the Senate chamber, a horde of reporters gathers when the doors open, shouting questions as the candidates try to make their way in to vote.

As her party's presidential front-runner, Clinton usually attracts the biggest entourage. When she joined Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and immigration advocates for a May press conference, the Russell Senate Office Building room filled to the bursting point before she arrived. Photographers crawled on the floor in front of a few rows of chairs brimming with immigration proponents and reporters. More reporters lined the walls, two deep. A phalanx of television cameras crowded the back of the room. The show of interest far outweighed the importance of the modest amendment on immigration visas that Clinton and Menendez were announcing.

As Clinton showed up wearing a lemon yellow jacket, it was as if the sun had risen, and the whole room turned to watch her enter. She made some remarks and patiently waited while the immigration advocates thanked her for her support. Nearly all the questions were directed toward her, but she batted away any not related to immigration. Then she shook hands as she moved toward the door to return to her personal office around the corner, followed by several dozen staffers, reporters, and photographers. The crowd took the shape of a comet, with the brightly clad candidate illuminated by klieg lights at its head and the mostly gray- and black-suited pack at its tail.

The way that the candidates have handled the press on the Hill has helped to shape their national image. Clinton, who has closely controlled her image ever since her experience as a lightning-rod first lady, rarely gabs informally with reporters. She often takes a back route to the Senate floor to avoid reporters' standard stakeout spots. On the other hand, sightings of McCain -- known for good press relations and open access throughout much of his Senate career and his 2000 presidential bid -- are far more common.

When McCain's campaign sputtered in the spring, he spent considerable time on the Hill attempting to shore up support for President Bush's Iraq war strategy, not to mention his own presidential bid. His frequent press conferences -- along with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., fellow Bush supporters on the war -- made him a fixture in the Senate Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery. When he's not out campaigning, McCain is also readily available during the press scrums before and after the policy luncheons that Senate Democrats and Republicans hold every Tuesday around the corner from each other in the Capitol. He'll take questions from the dozens of waiting reporters until there are no more.

Nevertheless, McCain's Senate work has appeared to hurt his campaign more than help. His high-profile support for the war dampened his following among independents, while his active promotion of a comprehensive immigration package cost him backing from conservatives, who viewed the measure as amnesty for illegal aliens.

Biden has been another ready-and-willing presence at the Tuesday luncheons. The infamously loquacious Biden has a familiar ease with reporters, similar to McCain's style, and he even introduced his two adult sons to a reporter amid the crush of press on a recent Tuesday in September. He freely discusses political strategy in a way that some presidential candidates would shy from.

"What's happening is, we just keep coming back, force these guys to belly up to the bar and vote no again and again," Biden told reporters in July when discussing how Senate Democrats were trying to wear down GOP support for the war. "One of two things happens. They either decide they can't do it any more, or they lose their next election. I'm not being a wise guy. It sounds like I'm being flip about it, but I think it's that fundamental, even in conservative states."

Biden is also a go-to guest on the Sunday talk-show circuit, given his position as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman. But like McCain, Biden doesn't appear to have helped his case by being so accessible. For instance, he held a well-attended October 25 press conference in the Foreign Relations Committee room to announce a crime prevention proposal, but newspapers and TV gave it little coverage.

Indeed, the long-shot presidential candidates might get a few more reporters to show up for their events on the Hill than if they weren't running, but that often doesn't translate into more attention from the public. Kucinich held an October 10 press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote authorizing the Iraq war. He could have participated in a similar media event earlier in the day sponsored by members of the Out of Iraq Caucus, but instead he held his own.

A few minutes before Kucinich's press conference was to begin on the terrace of the Cannon House Office Building, only three reporters had gathered. They were eventually joined by two Kucinich staffers and a CNN cameraman who sauntered up. When the candidate arrived and started talking, the only other sounds were the low-pitched rumble of Independence Avenue traffic and the rat-a-tat of a drill at a nearby construction site. He gave a few remarks chastising Democratic leaders for continuing to fund the war, took two questions, and left. As Kucinich walked down the street with a staffer in tow, one lone admiring passerby stopped him and shook his hand. Otherwise, none of the milling tourists stopped to stare or take a picture. And CNN didn't use the clip.

Yea Or Nay
To be sure, the presidential candidates would rather avoid some of the attention they get on the Hill, and much of that unwanted attention revolves around voting. As of October 31, the House had held 1,026 roll-call votes this year; the Senate, 401. That's plenty of ammunition for opposition researchers.

"In the modern era, those votes can cause you trouble," former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., a 1992 presidential candidate, said in an interview. "You voted this way, you voted that way, you were there for the vote, you weren't there for the vote. You can't win." Kerrey, now president of the New School in New York City, noted that the emergence of blogs that quickly disseminate political news compounds the importance of candidates' congressional voting records.

The two Republican presidential candidates in the Senate have been dogged by a June 28 test vote on a comprehensive immigration package that failed 46-53, far short of the 60 needed for approval. McCain helped negotiate the package and voted for it, moves that coincided with a disastrous quarter of fundraising and campaigning that dropped him in the polls.

That vote also haunted Brownback. It was one of the rare, dramatic roll calls in which the outcome was still up in the air at the last minute, and an unusual number of reporters had gathered in the press gallery to watch as the Senate clerk began calling on senators in alphabetical order. Brownback, the 13th to be called, initially responded "yea." But as the vote continued and it became obvious that the package would go down, he walked up to a desk at the front of the Senate, looked at the tally sheet, and then switched his vote to "nay."

Conservative bloggers, although opposed to the immigration bill, nevertheless lambasted Brownback. They complained that he was pandering to the Right with his vote switch, rather than taking a principled stance against "amnesty," and even nicknamed him "Senator Switchback." When Brownback withdrew from the presidential campaign on October 19, a reporter asked him what he would do differently if he had the chance. "I wouldn't debate immigration in the middle of an election cycle," he replied. "That's proven to be just a really difficult topic. That one was hard."

For the four Democratic senators running for president, nearly any variation in their votes has become campaign trail fodder. On September 26, Clinton voted for a resolution urging Bush to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Biden, Dodd, and Obama criticized her for the vote, arguing that she was in essence authorizing the president to take military action against Iran. But Obama, in New Hampshire that day, missed the vote. So Dodd also criticized him.

Similarly, Clinton and Dodd voted against a GOP-sponsored resolution criticizing a September ad [PDF] in The New York Times, sponsored by MoveOn.org, that criticized Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Republican presidential candidates criticized them for their votes opposing the resolution. Obama skipped the vote, saying that his absence was a protest of a politically motivated resolution. Republicans criticized him for that as well.

As the Iowa caucus has drawn closer, the candidates have missed more and more votes. In October, Obama showed up for only three of the Senate's 44 roll-call votes. McCain voted the most frequently, but even he missed 64 percent.

"You get back [to Washington] for as many votes that count -- that seem close -- as possible," said Lieberman, who was his party's vice presidential nominee in 2000 and ran for president in 2004. He explained that it's a balancing act for candidates and Senate leaders, who "will call and say, 'I really need you to be back here tomorrow.' " In one case in 2003, both Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., missed a vote on an amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that ended up failing by two votes. "He just filed it that day, and it got closer than people thought, so I had no time to get back," Lieberman said.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is charged with making sure that enough Democrats are present for the party to prevail on key votes. It's no easy task, considering that Democrats hold only a two-seat majority and that four of them are often out on the presidential campaign trail. Asked at an October 23 press event if he was worried about the campaigners making it to a vote the next day on a bill he was sponsoring to allow college-bound illegal immigrants to earn green cards, Durbin replied: "Yes, yes. It's my life.... We are dealing with presidential hopefuls and others to make sure they come back."

Biden, Clinton, and Obama indeed appeared the next day, but Durbin lost by 8 votes anyway. Dodd missed the vote, as did McCain, who had been present a few hours earlier to vote for one of Bush's more controversial judicial nominees -- an issue of importance to GOP primary voters. McCain said he would have voted against Durbin's immigration measure, even though he previously was a co-sponsor. Later, he told conservative bloggers he had learned his lesson on voting for immigration measures.

Parachuting In For Duty
Running for president can conflict with lawmakers' duties on the Hill, but their legislative work can also help their campaigns. The candidates can point to their support of or opposition to legislation moving through Congress as a reason for voters to support them.

Hunter, whose campaign has garnered little national attention, made the most of his position as ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee when Petraeus appeared on the Hill on September 10 to give a long-awaited progress report on the Iraq war. At a widely televised joint hearing held by his panel and the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- and with more than 100 lawmakers in attendance -- Hunter was the first Republican to speak. He used his opening statement to lambaste Democrats for failing to speak out against the MoveOn.org ad.

A few hours later, Hunter told NJ that he didn't care how the war affected Republicans in the 2008 election. "I don't even care about the politics," he said. "This should be a debate that turns on the national interest. Let the politics fall where they may." Hunter's campaign saw little tangible benefit from his starring role that day.

Dodd, for his part, took to the Senate floor on October 26 to announce his opposition to a bill extending the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping powers. "I will not stand on the floor of the United States Senate and be silent about the direction we are about to take," he declared. "I am prepared to filibuster this bill." Dodd then played up his filibuster threat in campaign materials.

Tancredo's quixotic campaign is focused mostly on immigration, which has been his signature issue in the House. He founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in 1999, slowly building support for tough immigration and border-security measures among House conservatives. The caucus had more than 100 members by the time Tancredo announced his presidential campaign. In late October, when he revealed he would be retiring from the House at the end of his current term, Tancredo noted, "I really believe I have done all I can do in the House, especially about [immigration]."

Clinton, meanwhile, is the most prolific sponsor of legislation among the presidential contenders, having introduced 131 bills or amendments since the start of the year. Many of them play to issues that she is touting on the campaign trail. A quarter of her legislation is related to foreign and military policy. Another fifth involves education or children's health care. She has sponsored several measures on rural issues and several more on women's rights, targeting demographic groups that she is seeking to woo in her presidential bid.

Clinton has also made the most of her membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She dutifully attends many of the panel's hearings and patiently waits for her turn to grill witnesses, even though she is 19th of 25 in the pecking order. Whenever critics question her ability to serve as commander-in-chief, she can point to her tough exchanges with the Defense secretary and the nation's generals over military minutiae. "Were any heavy-lift helicopters, such as the H-53 or the H-47, considered viable alternatives for the CSAR mission, and if not, could you explain why not?" Clinton asked in a typical in-the-weeds exchange on March 20 with Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff.

Clinton merely serves as a committee member, in contrast to Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Both have had to hand the gavel over to more-junior committee members from time to time. Freshman Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., for example, presided over a recent Foreign Relations hearing on an ocean treaty while Biden campaigned.

Dodd's absences have come under fire from lobbyists whose interests are affected by his committee's work. A major investigation this year into the banking industry's credit card practices was conducted not by Dodd's committee but by a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee headed by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. The Bush administration has criticized the Senate for failing to pass housing legislation that also falls under Dodd's committee. The complaints are reminiscent of problems that then-Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., faced while trying to juggle his 1996 presidential bid with the responsibilities of serving as Senate majority leader.

Dole eventually resigned from the Senate to pursue his campaign full-time.

A tricky balancing act for presidential candidates in Congress is how to stand out while fitting in. If they want legislation to pass, they have to win the support of a majority of their fellow members. That often means encouraging the support of a coalition of co-sponsors, a feat that can become easier if you're a presidential candidate. Paul, for example, recently co-sponsored a bill that would restrict future presidents' war powers. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and the other co-sponsors frequently noted at the press event announcing the bill that Paul is a presidential candidate. His campaign gave him cachet, although both his candidacy and the legislation he is co-sponsoring are long shots. As the Libertarian presidential nominee in 1988, Paul got just 0.47 percent of the national vote.

Some of the Senate candidates, meanwhile, have been more likely to fly solo on their proposals, if only to assure that the public sees a plan as their idea. Biden stood alone at the October 25 press conference announcing the "Biden crime bill." Dodd frequently stood alone in the Senate Radio-TV Gallery to announce his positions on the Iraq war or the economy. Obama announced his plan for ending the war by making a speech on the Senate floor. His plan, introduced on January 30, has attracted only three co-sponsors. Clinton's plan for the war has attracted none.

Running Out of Time
Lawmakers who have run for the White House from the Hill generally offer cautionary tales to the current candidates. "There's the constant travel, the constant back-and-forth, the stress of having a dinner at 8 in Chicago and having a vote delayed until 6," Hart said. "There's a lot of dashing to the airport and dashing back."

In his 2002 book Square Peg, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who ran for president two years earlier, lamented the difficulties of campaigning for the White House while serving in Congress. "It is impossible to satisfy both, because both are full-time occupations," Hatch wrote. "A normal workday in the Senate runs 12 hours. This is especially true of members who are in leadership positions or are committee and subcommittee chairmen. Hearings alone are scheduled for every day of the working week, often several in one day, and time has to be reserved daily to meet with constituents, an obligation that often extends over weekends. In addition, unlike many governors, senators have little control over their own schedules. Their lives are largely dictated by the leaders in the House and the Senate, none of whom are willing to inconvenience the lives of the rest of the members to accommodate one or two who happen to be running for president."

Or four or five. As if to drive home Hatch's point, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on November 2 threatened to hold a weekend session on November 10 and 11, he pointedly warned the presidential hopefuls. "I'm going to leave here and go call our presidentials [and] let them know that they better look at their schedules, because these are not votes you can miss," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Running from the Hill may be a drag, but it can be fun every now and then. On Halloween, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., donned a "Joseph Biden for President" T-shirt and a Biden mask, and stormed up to the dais just before the start of a Foreign Relations Committee meeting. "We're not worthy!" Hagel said, waving a gavel in the air. "Hagel for vice president," Biden deadpanned back. Hagel took off the mask but wore the Biden T-shirt throughout the meeting.

Still, the fun may have come at a cost. While Biden was tied up at the meeting, committee members Dodd and Obama played hooky. They had presidential races to run, after all.

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