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Political pals size each other up

BY CRAIG GORDON AND GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

May 7, 2006

WASHINGTON - Visitors ushered into Hillary Rodham Clinton's private inner office on Capitol Hill are greeted by a jarring image: Clinton and her potential arch-rival John McCain smiling conspicuously in an autographed snapshot hung by the door.

The bonhomie suggested by the grip-and-grin may be real, but there's also a growing sense in each camp that Clinton and McCain are on a collision course. With the election two-plus years out, both teams are starting to size up each other's strengths and weaknesses.

For many in McCain's camp, taking on Clinton has enormous appeal - as a way to drive conservatives often wary of McCain into his arms by presenting them with a stark choice between the Arizona Republican and the woman conservatives love to hate.

"Someone asked me, 'Why is John suddenly picking up support from former Bush people and people who are quite conservative?' It's more fear than love. I think they fear a Hillary presidency," said former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman, a longtime McCain ally.

By contrast, McCain is probably the only Republican most liberals would ever consider supporting. And that makes him the greatest threat Clinton faces, according to the former first lady's supporters.

Democrats' talking points on McCain boil down to a single word: formidable.

Clinton's backers say they need to find a way to break up the love affair with McCain among some independents and moderates - mainly by arguing that he's anything but the straight talker he claims to be and highlighting issues where he has tilted to the right.

They are likely to bring up his anti-abortion record and his one-time call for more troops in Iraq. They might even revive the 2000 claim that McCain's hot temper makes him unsuited for the Oval Office.

Some Clinton supporters relish the idea of painting McCain as Clinton herself has been portrayed: a flip-flopper with a thousand political faces.

"The Democrats are going to try to say that John McCain isn't the independent fellow everyone thinks he is," said a party operative on good terms with Clinton. "This is a man who shifts with the prevailing political winds."

Just another politician?

Those critics might get some fodder for that argument Saturday when McCain speaks at the commencement at the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., which calls itself the world's largest evangelical college.

McCain famously ripped evangelical Christian leaders, including Falwell, as "agents of intolerance" during his run for president in 2000, which turned him into a reviled figure by many in a key part of the Republican base.

It was exactly those kinds of damn-the-torpedoes statements that bolstered McCain's political persona as a maverick and won over independents and Democrats.

Now McCain has to make sure the speech at Liberty doesn't make him look like the one thing his supporters thought he was not the last time around - just another politician who'll say whatever it takes to get elected.

Tom Rath, a Republican national committeeman in New Hampshire, says McCain runs the risk with independent-minded voters in that critical primary state of looking like he caved with the speech at Liberty.

McCain advisers note that he's also speaking at two lefty New York hotbeds, New School University and Columbia University.

Plan of attack on Clinton

As for Clinton, McCain's supporters envision a line of attack charging the New York senator is two things they say McCain is not: a big-government liberal and deeply polarizing.

McCain strategists believe the political climate sets up even better than 2000 for the Vietnam veteran, with lobbying scandals and pork-barrel spending under fire in Washington, voters soured on both parties and national security front and center. His strongest primary challenge could come from former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, should Giuliani choose to run.

Strange as it might seem, both Clinton and McCain are struggling with many of the same questions as they face a possible White House run. How do they convert rock-star fame into votes? How do they avoid stumbling as the front-runner two years out? How do they explain their steadfast support of the war in Iraq?

Most of all: How can they tilt to the political right to win new supporters without leaving their old fans in the dust?

Already some of McCain's money people from 2000 are raising those questions.

"They all want to know, 'Is he running? And is he going to be same person?'" said one McCain fundraiser from 2000 who stays in close contact with Republican donors.