‘06 Campaign Cry: Public First, Party Second

As campaign 2006 heats up, the first important new theme of the 2008 presidential election may be emerging.

From Washington state to Maryland, candidates in both parties are running against the relentless partisan conflict that now defines life in the nation’s capital. In an era when party-line voting in Congress has reached the highest level, by some measures, since the 1890s, a growing number of office-seekers are pledging to operate as an independent voice and a bridge between the parties if voters give them a ticket to Capitol Hill. In the process, they are honing arguments likely to be common in the race to succeed President Bush.

In Missouri, Republican Sen. Jim Talent has run television advertisements in his reelection campaign highlighting the legislation he co-sponsored with Democrats. “Most people don’t care if you’re red or blue. Republican or Democrat,” an announcer says. “They care about getting things done.”

In Minnesota, Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy, who’s seeking a Senate seat, has aired an advertisement promoting his willingness to break with the GOP on education, the environment and pension protection. “I’m not afraid to work with the other side,” he says in the spot.

In an ad in Maryland, Republican Senate hopeful Michael Steele looks earnestly into the camera and promises: “I’ll talk straight about what’s wrong in both parties.”

Because so many GOP candidates have struck these notes, political analysts primarily have viewed them as attempts to separate from Bush as his approval ratings remain weak. And candidates such as Talent (who voted on Bush’s side 91% of the time in 2005, according to Congressional Quarterly) and Kennedy (87% support for the Bush position) clearly are displaying more enthusiasm for independence on the campaign trail than they have most days in Congress.

But there’s more to the dynamic than Republicans ditching Bush. For one thing, Democrats such as Senate challengers Jim Pederson in Arizona and Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania are emphasizing their willingness to work across party lines. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, trying to hold his seat as an independent after losing the Democratic primary last month, is centering his campaign on a promise to transcend partisan differences.

More important, the candidates in both parties using these arguments are raising issues much broader than the proper level of loyalty to a president; they are indicting the entire system of lock step partisan allegiance -- and reflexive partisan confrontation -- that now drives so much of the Washington debate.

Mike McGavick, the Republican challenging Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell in Washington state, is among the candidates questioning that system most fundamentally. McGavick, the former chairman and chief executive for the insurance giant Safeco Corp., has had a rough few weeks. Recently, he preemptively released information on a number of embarrassing episodes in his past, including a 1993 drunk driving arrest in Maryland -- only to face persistent questions about the accuracy of his recollection that forced him last week to issue a second statement clarifying his description of the arrest.

But McGavick has developed a sophisticated critique of the way Washington works -- or doesn’t. The intensifying pressure for party unity, he argues, makes it impossible for Congress to resolve difficult problems. Republican unwillingness to compromise, he maintains, is preventing action on immigration, just as the Democratic refusal to negotiate doomed any possibility of restructuring the Social Security system.

Just as important, he argues, the growing tendency toward party-line voting compromises legislators’ ability to represent their states. By definition, he says, members of Congress who vote with their own party almost all of the time are elevating partisan over local interests. “I vowed to my state that I want to be thrown out if I am voting with my party 90% of the time,” McGavick says. “Because [if I do that], I cannot possibly be representing my state well.”

It’s no coincidence that these arguments are being raised most forcefully by candidates caught behind enemy lines: Republicans, including McGavick and Steele, running in Democratic-leaning blue states, or Democrats such as Pederson in Republican-leaning red states. Cooperation with the other party is unquestionably most attractive for politicians who need votes from the other side to win.

But that’s nothing new. Historically, the best bridge builders in Congress have been politicians facing electorates that lean toward the other party -- former senators such as Republican Jacob K. Javits of New York or Democrat John B. Breaux of Louisiana. Compromise in Washington would almost certainly come easier if voters elected more cross-pressured legislators -- red state Democrats and blue state Republicans -- compelled to balance partisan demands against local opinion.

It’s not clear how many of the candidates promising more independence will get a chance to demonstrate it. Apart from Talent -- and perhaps Lieberman -- the Senate candidates emphasizing that theme are clear underdogs. And the danger of too often actually breaking from the party mainstream in office was evident in Lieberman’s primary defeat -- and the possibility that Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) could lose a GOP primary Tuesday on similar charges of disloyalty.

But the candidates pledging more cooperation are tapping into what polls show is public exhaustion with the bruising collisions between the parties that dominated most of President Clinton’s term and have consumed almost every day of Bush’s presidency.

Whatever happens to McGavick and the others, they are blazing trails presidential contenders from both parties are likely to follow. These ’06 campaigns are an early signal that in ‘08, many Americans may want a president who, as someone once put it, will govern as a “uniter, not a divider.”

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ronald.brownstein@latimes.com

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Sunday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ website at latimes.com/brownstein.