Usually Quite Outspoken, Senate Maverick Now Unusually Quiet

He has been unusually mum on the subject, exuding a rare detachment that has struck colleagues. On most days, he looks like he would rather be anywhere than in the Senate chamber, sitting in judgment of President Clinton.

And for good reason.

The looming vote to acquit or convict is more politically treacherous for Sen. John McCain of Arizona than probably any other senator.

As the sole Republican senator with a realistic shot at the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, McCain faces what may be a lose-lose proposition.

A vote to acquit the president surely would antagonize the GOP’s Clinton-hating base, whose support is vital to any candidate for the Republican nomination.

But a vote to oust the president may alienate the independent and moderate voters he will need in a general-election campaign--people who have made abundantly clear in poll after poll that they do not want Clinton removed from office.

Alone in the National Spotlight

To be sure, many of the 19 GOP senators up for reelection in 2000 also face difficult decisions, because they represent states that Clinton carried in 1992 or 1996 or both.

But only McCain faces the prospect of having to justify his votes in a national campaign. Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire also is weighing a bid for the party’s nomination, but few regard him as a viable contender.

As the showdown vote--now expected Thursday or Friday--draws near, McCain has been lying low and keeping his own counsel--a remarkable stance for one of Congress’ most effusive and media-savvy members.

“He’s going about it in a very solitary manner. He’s not even talking to staff,” McCain’s press secretary, Nancy Ives, said.

“He may be in a tough spot, but I doubt that he looks at it that way,” said John Weaver, a McCain political consultant. “Political calculus is a foreign language to John McCain. His career has been earmarked by doing what he believes is the right thing--consequences be damned.”

In a brief hallway interview recently, McCain refused to talk about the proceedings, but vowed to do so after the trial.

“I really haven’t made up my mind how I’m going to vote,” he said.

Just before ducking back into his office, McCain added that he is personally “less worried about the impeachment vote” than about a voter backlash in 2000 against all Republicans, for what the public sees as the party promoting little of substance while going after Clinton.

“He’s not trying to draw attention to his stance on the issue or stake out a public profile here,” Ives said.

McCain’s reticence is understandable, his friends and political analysts agree.

“It’s a very wise position he’s taking. After all, he’s a juror, he’s a judge,” said former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), who co-chairs the McCain for President exploratory committee.

Rudman disputed the notion that McCain is in a no-win situation.

“That’s a cockamamie theory,” he snapped. “By the time 2000 rolls around, Clinton will be history and people will have forgotten most of this.”

A onetime prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain is a brash maverick who rarely thinks twice before staking out some controversial position in defiance of his GOP colleagues or party elders. Last year, he aggressively promoted campaign finance reform and tobacco regulation, two bills that most Republicans vehemently denounced--and then killed.

McCain’s silence concerning impeachment has not gone unnoticed by his colleagues.

“He’s been very quiet, unusually quiet. He’s even missed some party caucuses,” said one GOP senator who knows McCain well. “It’s so unlike him.”

The Senate is to vote on two House-approved articles of impeachment, one alleging perjury, the other obstruction of justice. It takes a two-thirds vote--67 senators--on either to remove Clinton from office. Most senators and observers believe that is highly unlikely to happen.

But some Republicans--and perhaps even a Democrat or two--could vote against one article but for the other, a possibility that McCain surely will weigh.

“He doesn’t alienate that many in the Republican Party if he votes to convict. But if he votes to acquit, his longshot chances just got a lot longer,” University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said.

“The impeachment meltdown has made it just about impossible for Republicans to nominate a candidate from Congress for president. But the one exception is an anti-Congress maverick--McCain,” he added.

On the other hand, Sabato said, “the one thing that could change his image as a maverick is to be associated with this very unpopular impeachment process.”

Senate No Lock on White House

McCain’s dilemma also is a reminder--as was the 1996 presidential campaign of ex-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole--that a Senate seat is hardly a springboard to the White House. Indeed, only two men in this century have gone directly from the Senate to the Oval Office--Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy.

Political analyst Charlie Cook framed the dilemma facing McCain as a choice between the GOP’s medium and large campaign donors, who may not be pro-Clinton but think impeachment is “a really bad idea,” and the smaller direct-mail donors, who are “violently anti-Clinton.”

McCain, he said, has looked largely to the “country club, Main Street, business executives wing of the party that is not violently anti-Clinton.” They are likely to be more forgiving than the party’s hard-line conservatives, Cook said.

“My assumption would be, he’s going to vote for” Clinton’s ouster, he said. “That may be the best strategy for McCain--go ahead and vote for the articles, but keep your mouth shut in the process and then move on, and try to rebuild your support.”