How Would John McCain Govern?

January 4, 2000

Transcript prepared from C-Span2

Panelists:

Helen Dewar, congressional reporter, Washington Post
Hon. Chuck Hagel, U.S. Senate (R-NE)
Matthew Kelley, regional reporter, Associated Press
Hon. Bob Packwood, former U.S. Senator (R-OR)
Daniel Schnur, communications director, McCain for President

Moderators:

David Brooks, senior editor, Weekly Standard, and contributing editor, Newsweek
E. J. Dionne, Jr., columnist, Washington Post, and senior fellow, Brookings Institution

Project Directors:

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Thomas Mann, senior fellow, Brookings Institution

Proceedings:

MR. ORNSTEIN: (In progress)...so this set of seminars will fit with books, other seminars that we will run, and a whole series of other procedures that will follow through the course of the campaign, and then during the transition period afterwards.

I would like to for a moment introduce my co-director in this project, Tom Mann of The Brookings Institution.

MR. MANN: Thank you very much, Norm. On behalf of Brookings, I am delighted to join with Norm and The Hoover Institution in sponsoring this series of discussions about how would they govern. Our overall project was made possible by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and we are grateful to them for this.

David Brooks and E.J. Dionne got us off to a wonderful start on Tuesday. We really began to grapple with questions that really usually get very little attention in the campaign debate and in the coverage of the campaign. That is, trying to anticipate how the various proposals put forward by candidates would actually be put into practice. Presidential candidates' theory of the presidency, how they would structure it, how they would work with Congress. What is possible by way of governing, given the context in which we operate and given the likely results of the election?

These are questions that are very important, and we are indeed honored by having these five colleagues with us today to help us think through those questions with respect to a possible John McCain presidency. So I am delighted you all have agreed to participate and you all have joined us in the audience, and I look forward to another stimulating session.

Back to you, Norm.

MR. ORNSTEIN: Thanks, Tom. Some of those questions are raised in a new issue of The Brookings Review called "The State of Governing in America 2000," which includes a piece that Tom and I have done, raising very explicitly some of the questions we will talk about today.

The session today will be, as the last and as the next two, moderated by two of our most distinguished journalists and commentators whom I will introduce in a moment. Let me first introduce our panelists, starting over on my far left.

Matt Kelley is a regional reporter in the Washington Bureau of the Associated Press, covering Arizona in particular, as well as New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. He covered Arizona politics for the AP in Phoenix from 1997 to 1999, including covering Senator McCain's reelection campaign in 1998. He has also covered news and politics for the AP in other states.

Dan Schnur is Communications Director for McCain 2000. He has had a long career in politics, particularly in California, serving as Communications Director for Governor Pete Wilson for four years; has served as a visiting instructor at the University of California at Berkeley in the Institute for Governmental Studies, I believe; and has been a radio and television commentator in California, and worked in other presidential campaigns as well.

Chuck Hagel is a Senator from Nebraska. He was elected to that post in 1996. A decorated Vietnam veteran; a successful businessman with Vanguard Cellular Systems; and somebody who has also served in the Reagan Administration as Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration. Senator Hagel serves on the Foreign Relations, Banking, and other committees, and also is Chair of the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion.

Bob Packwood represented Oregon in the United States Senate from 1969 through 1995. He served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1985 through 1986, including of course during the period in which the 1986 tax reform act was implemented, in which he played a central role; served again as Chairman in 1995, and Chairman also of the Senate Commerce Committee for several years.

And Helen Dewar is a congressional reporter for The Washington Post, where she has been a reporter since 1961, evidently right out of high school.

MS. DEWAR: Kindergarten.

MR. ORNSTEIN: And has reported on the Senate with distinction for a number of years, including reporting directly on Senator McCain's efforts on campaign finance reform and his involvement in tobacco legislation.

Now, our two moderators. E. J. Dionne, over also on my left, is a columnist for The Washington Post and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution; served as a reporter and editorial writer for the Post, also as a correspondent for The New York Times in various places around the world; and has written one of the best books about contemporary American politics, "Why Americans Hate Politics."

David Brooks is a senior editor of The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek--he is standing right behind me--and a commentator for National Public Radio. He has been at The Standard since it began in 1995. He worked at The Wall Street Journal in a number of posts before that, including op ed page editor, European correspondent; and is currently writing a book for Simon & Schuster on the manners and morals of upscale America, about which we know very little around here.

So let me turn things over to our two moderators.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you. Thank you, Norm. I want to thank everyone for joining us today, and our CSPAN audience also for joining us.

I want to reiterate one thing I said at the last session, that we are not pretending here to create some artificial standard of statesmanship. We are guided by the legendary politician, Thomas Reed, who said, "A statesman is a successful politician who is dead." We are looking for the characteristics of someone who could govern successfully while still alive.

In thinking about the kind of campaign Senator McCain is running and how he is presenting himself, it is worth recalling the story of the 1924 Democratic presidential candidate, John W. Davis. He was asked what issue would he use in the election, and Davis replied, "Honesty," to which Will Rogers said, "Honesty isn't an issue in politics, it's a miracle."

If nothing else, I think that reminds us that for all our grousing about our current cynicism about politics and politicians or skepticism, it is a skepticism that runs deeply through our tradition, though we all wish we could do skepticism as wittily as Will Rogers did.

As a reminder here for our audience, we will be taking questions from the floor, and while we will be talking about a lot of issues, the specific purpose of these sessions is to focus on how Senator McCain would govern. So I would ask everyone to save arguments about campaign reform or taxes for another day--you can see Senator McCain in a living room in New Hampshire to talk to him about that--and to focus your questions today on matters specifically related to governing.

And David will start by setting a superb and witty example. David?

MR. BROOKS: I was saying before that all my journalistic organs are rejecting all the substance implants that are trying to be put in. But I have received a bluntly worded letter from Senator McCain's office, demanding that we get started and not dilly-dally any longer, despite the fact that I have given him no rides on my corporate jet.

So the first question will be for Senator Hagel, and it arises out of a little mental exercise I had trying to imagine myself as a New Hampshire Republican voter, which aside from the pomposity inflation I would have to do, I have tried to do. And the way I thought about the Republican contenders was this:

If I thought the next four years would be filled with Cuban missile crisis type situations which really demanded a solitary leader who had a real depth of experience, then I might vote for McCain. But if I thought the next four years were going to be a period of affluence where you needed in the administration a broad team of experts, and you had a closely divided Congress with small majorities of either sort, then you would have to go with Bush because he has shown he could work across party lines. And I wonder how you could respond to sort of that formulation, and how you think McCain would operate in a closely divided Congress?

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, thank you. First I should point out, in the interest of full disclosure which is important in this town, that I am not an innocent bystander nor neutral in this effort. I am a national co-chairman for John McCain's Presidential Committee, and I appreciated Norm's camouflage of that, but I think it is only appropriate that I tell you that right from the beginning.

I also would like to thank the organizers and supporters of this, because it is a perspective that the people of this country rarely have an opportunity to see or hear, and it is important that the reality of governance and the objective of this process, governance, be given some attention. So thank you, to all of you who have been involved in putting this together.

To your question, we are all products of our environment. We are all products of our experience base. And you take John McCain, his 63 years of life has represented a rather deep and wide experience base, and it is not just about foreign policy, national defense issues like, as you stated, a Cuban missile crisis kind of an event. He has served 17 years in the Congress. He is Chairman of the Commerce Committee, which received some recent attention regarding the FCC.

That then leads one to believe that Mr. McCain is more than a one-issue candidate, one-dimensional candidate; that he has dealt with domestic issues as well as international issues throughout his 17 years in the House and the Senate, and as well as his distinguished career in the Navy.

I don't believe, nor do I believe you would find in the McCain presidency, find him categorizing or departmentalizing focus and energy and priorities on issues. He would assemble a cabinet, beginning with a vice presidential pick, that would have the depth and the breadth of experience base that could deal with all of the great challenges of our time. That indeed is governance. That is responsible leadership. So I don't think that one issue over any other issue would dominate John McCain's presidency or his willingness to deal with it in his own style, with the most qualified individuals that he could put together.

The last point I would make, there is, I suspect, little question that of the four candidates that are most often touted as most likely, one of the four, to be President of the United States, on both the Democrat and Republican side, that John McCain comes to this with a better base on these kind of international military, national security issues than others. Now, you could debate that.

But that should not at all give the American people any sense that he is good at one issue and not good at the other. I think his track record, and we all come to this business with a track record, would reflect very well on how he would handle all the issues and the great challenges of our time.

MR. DIONNE: I would like to sort of follow up on that with Helen Dewar, who has been covering Congress since grade school, not high school. And it could be said that if he is elected, Senator McCain's problem would not be dealing with a Democratic Congress, it would be dealing with Republicans in Congress.

And in particular I would like to ask Helen to talk about the terrible things that some Republicans in the leadership seem to say about McCain and why they are saying them. And, in general, how does he get along with the Republican leadership in the Senate and also his Republican colleagues, with of course the exception of Senator Hagel here. Helen?

MS. DEWAR: Well, I think it is no secret that he has somewhat rocky relations with a number of members of his own Republican Caucus. I can think of three or four basic reasons why, and I think probably some Republican Senators could think of a whole lot more than that.

One of them is that McCain, as much I think as almost anybody in the Senate, just cares, seems to care intensely about whatever he is embarked upon, the issues. And when he does, he acts on it, and he acts on it regardless of what many of his colleagues may think or some of the institutional inhibitions on it. And I am thinking of campaign finance. I am thinking of what he regards as pork barrel spending on unnecessary projects. He will persevere in spite of the opposition, or sometimes, some would say, because of it.

He has also picked issues that tend to be opposed or where his position is opposed by many if not a majority of members of his own party. This is not to say that I am--and it seems to me, just when I have watched him, on many issues he is a very kind of traditional Republican in support of economic policies and some social policies.

But on things like campaign finance, on crusading against pork barrel spending, on some of the foreign policy positions he has taken, these are not issues that--where the majority of colleagues, of Republican colleagues, have agreed with him. And very frequently he has been very outspoken and direct and persistent on the subject.

On some of these issues, the ones that are particularly prickly for Republicans, he often has the support of Democrats, campaign finance being an example, and I think that rankles even more. But I think over and above that, a lot of it is his personal style, where he does not hesitate to get up close and personal with people when he disagrees with them, and tries to persuade them to his way or to, some critics say, stand on his position and refuse to relent.

In part because of some of the very high profile issues like campaign finance, he has come head-to-head with the Republican leadership in opposition to his position, and I think there is some strained--maybe Senator Hagel can speak more directly to it, but there are strained relations with a number of fairly important people in the Republican Party in the Senate.

This could create a problem if he were elected President. But at the same time, on the other side of it, you could argue that his ability to sort of create a bully pulpit anyplace he goes to try and reach out, build public support for an issue. He would pursue this maybe as a separate avenue to currying relations with Congress.

MR. BROOKS: I will turn now to Senator Packwood. I would like to first read a sentence from the column that appeared in this morning's Wall Street Journal, by the sainted editor Robert Bartley, my former boss. It is this:

"Preparing to be head of government, George W. Bush has assembled a team of leading issue experts and offers a road map of what he would try to do as President. By contrast, Senator McCain tends to turn each issue into a matter of character. What matters is not policy goals but personal honor, the royal approach."

And I would like to ask Senator Packwood, who served with Senator McCain on the Commerce Committee and in other fora, judging on what you know of Senator McCain's style, leadership style, what sort of White House would he run? What would be the structure of the White House? Would it be a White House focused on Cabinet? Would it be a White House focused on a tightly knit band of White House staffers? It is speculation, but maybe you could give it a shot.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Some weeks ago I was asked if I could sum up, using a few words, John McCain. And I thought for a moment and then I said, "Duty, honor, country, McCain." He would be chief of staff. I mean, he would be the commander. There is no question about it. And anybody who is in his Cabinet will understand who is in control.

Interestingly, the Republicans in Congress will, too. I don't worry about the fact that they get riled from time to time. You know the old Mark Twain, although others have said it: "When I was 14, I thought my old man was a fool. By the time I was 21, I was amazed what he had learned." You would be amazed how the Republicans in the Congress will come to appreciate John McCain if he is President, and they will have an entirely different view of him than they do right now, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

But John will be in charge. I think he understands something about the presidency that some others have not, and I served with Lyndon Johnson through Bill Clinton. And I think of all the Presidents, although I disagreed with him on much of the social issues, I thought that Ronald Reagan understood the function of the presidency better than most.

He really thought the function was to inspire the country. You hire people to run the government. Sometimes you make a mistake as to who you hire. I think John understands that his function is to inspire this country, and that he can do.

MR. DIONNE: Dan Schnur, Senator McCain has put together a very good political staff. This is not a pander to you. We will exempt you from that if you would like.

MR. SCHNUR: Pander accepted.

MR. DIONNE: But he seems to have a much weaker policy staff, or at least a much less visible policy staff. His plans, with the exception of campaign reform, and to some degree foreign policy, and we are told soon taxes, are much less detailed than Bush's. Why is that?

MR. SCHNUR: Well, I think the best place to start is to choose one of the two options you laid out in your question. The policy team surrounding John McCain is just as, if not more, talented than the political staff. But the political staff, as you know, when you put people like myself and Mike Murphy and Rick Davis in front of a room full of journalists, it is awfully tough to get us out and talking. So the political staff might be a little bit more outgoing, but I certainly--and I think my colleagues would agree with me--we are not any more talented and probably not as talented as the policy people who are around John McCain.

I think what your question reflects, E.J., is rather the emphasis that the Senator has outlined on the campaign trail, and there is no question that campaign finance reform and getting rid of the soft money and the special interests and so on has been a theme of the campaign. But we made a strategic decision that although we wanted people to hear about that first, there would come a time for him laying out an issues agenda.

In fact, in the latter part of last year the Senator gave very comprehensive speeches on foreign policy and defense, on health care and the environment. He has a speech scheduled for next week, as you mentioned, on taxes and social security, and will speak over the next weeks in some depth on issues of education, public safety, and technology.

So the fact that his specific policy agenda has not been as visible as the thematic of campaign finance reform and the reduction of the influence of special interests, I don't think reflects either his priorities or the talent of those around him who advise him on policy matters.

If I can just, real quickly, if it's allowed, get back to something that was asked of Helen, as it related to the Senator's relationship with fellow Republicans, and I should certainly defer to the Senators on this.

One, I think it's worth noting that Senator Hagel is not alone in his support of Senator McCain. In fact, there are four United States Senators, of the 55 Republicans, who are supporting John McCain for president. But I think it's worth noting that at this point in the first days of 1980, Ronald Reagan had the support of three Republican United States Senators and only six members of the U.S. House of Representatives. And when you run an insurgent campaign, when you run a campaign as an outsider against the system, you're going to rattle some cages on both sides of the fence. And it's been more visible among Republicans I think primarily, and I defer to Helen on this, because Democrats had the good sense, knowing that because campaign finance is not going to pass the Senate, they might as well jump on board. But I'd suggest to you that, to the extent that Senator McCain has difficulties with the political establishment, those are bipartisan difficulties, and they are based on his interest and willingness to change the status quo.

MR. DIONNE: Could I just ask you to list a few of the more prominent self-effacing policy advisors to McCain? Because I think one of our purposes here is to figure out what would an administration look like.

MR. SCHNUR: I'm sitting next to one of them, Senator Hagel, and certainly Senators Thompson, and Kyl and DeWine and members of the House of Representatives who have decided to endorse the Senator, I'll advise them regularly on policy.

Just to name a few, on education, his primary education advisor is Lisa Graham Keegan, the superintendent of Public Instruction, the State of Arizona. Our chief economic advisor is a gentleman by the name of Kevin Hassett. He works for an obscure academic think tank somewhere in downtown Washington, D.C.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: AEI, just to fill in the--

MR. SCHNUR: And there are a number of others. But at least on the speeches about to come out, you'll be seeing and hearing quite a bit more of Kevin on the economic and Social Security matters and quite a bit more of Lisa when it comes to education.

MR DIONNE: Thanks.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: If I might jump in here, I'm on John's tax committee, and I've sent down a variety of papers to him. It's not appropriate for me to indicate what I've sent, but I've them down. He's asked for my opinions, and someplace along the way they'll be digested.

But I could comment on some specifics, where I know--I shouldn't say I know. Nobody knows--but where I think John would come out on policy because I served with him--

MR. BROOKS: Senator, could I ask you to defer that?

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Oh, I'm sorry.

MR. BROOKS: We were hoping to just get down the row once, and then we'll have a more free flowing--

MR. BROOKS: And we have sort of policy grounds we'll try to cover in chunks. Just to finish up this first round with Mr. Kelley, who has covered Senator McCain in Arizona.

The Arizona relations have now become notorious, and I'd like to ask you, I mean, the crucial question, as far as governance is concerned, it seems to me, is how does he deal with equals, near equals and subordinates. And one episode leaps to mind. A prominent Arizona elected official, I asked her who she supported in '96, and she said, "Well, Senator McCain was for Graham, so we were all for Graham."

And I was wondering if you could describe how he's treated subordinates, people, fellow state officials in the state, and how it might affect or inform his governing method.

MR. SCHNUR: Well, it's not secret that McCain has had rocky relationships with Republicans in Arizona, just like he has in the U.S. Senate. I think one interesting thing about his relationship with Arizona Republicans is that, at least until recent months, all of the disagreements and all of the strife has been very much behind the scenes.

He's, I think, been really careful about putting together a united front and not letting personal disagreements over policy become something that's going to tear the party apart on a state level. Obviously, I think he is and wants to be a driving force in the GOP in Arizona, and I think that because there are factions within the party in Arizona which are not aligned with him, there's bound to be strife because he has such a strong personality, and he has his views on where the party should be going that clash oftentimes with what other people feel like.

So I think it's kind of hard to draw a lot of parallels because, as the state's senior Senator, he kind of has an even ceremonial kind of role that would be quite different once he becomes president. But I think that, even people who he has disagreements with, like I said up until recently, haven't been willing to criticize him because they also share the same desire to keep the party intact and because, quite frankly, their disagreements are not as numerous or as important as their agreements most of the time.

He has famously had discussions with Governor Hull, where she has to hold the phone out from her ear because it's getting so heated. But, at the end of the day, those disagreements aren't enough to completely alienate them from each other. It was not surprising that Governor Hull endorsed Governor Bush for the presidency, but she was very careful not to go so far criticizing McCain as to be very damaging to him. There's a lot of getting along.

He wanted to change the primary in Arizona from February to past the March 7th California primary. That effort fell apart in the Arizona legislature last year. And the lawmaker who was sponsoring that bill was somewhat apprehensive about his relationship with McCain after that, but there was never, as far as anybody could determine, never any retribution or any consequences to that lawmaker for that effort, for failing in that effort. So it's yes, he has a volatile relationship, but at the end of the day, it's not something that's incredibly divisive I think.

MR. DIONNE: I think we want to get back to that some. I'd like to turn to Senator Hagel and also, afterward, invite Senator Packwood to come back in.

If you could comment on some of the things that Helen talked about, in terms of the relations with other Republicans. And specifically, you have worked with, alongside and kind of with some alternatives on campaign finance reform with Senator McCain. What was he like to deal with in that period? How was he dealing with you, when you were putting up your alternatives? How was he dealing with the Republican leadership?

Could you talk a little bit about the internal action on campaign reform and then also, in the process, talk about some of the things Helen said about his relations with the leadership.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, starting with campaign finance reform, as Helen stated, and I think it's been rather obvious as we have taken the first pass here with the last few minutes on McCain and his personality and his style, this is an individual who is rather committed to his beliefs. And I think that isn't all bad. And I think the country and the world might well benefit from a president who believes in things, and actually who follows his instincts and who reaches out and listens to people. That was rather obvious during the campaign finance reform debate in my relationship with John. I have actively opposed McCain-Feingold, and I have taken to the floor of the Senate and made speeches and explained it to John and to Russ.

However, at the same time, I have always given John McCain and Russ Feingold very high marks for identifying what I believe, and I think what most Americans believe, is a problem. We do need to do something about unaccountable, undisclosed resources coming into federal campaigns. And it isn't just all soft money. It's third-party organizations that don't have to play by the same rules that the political structure dictates that parties and candidates do.

I've always believed, and I've told John this, that I think at the heart of any campaign finance reform is disclosure. And regardless of what you do in campaign finance reform, without disclosure, I think it's meaningless. So what I told John I was willing to do, and I have done this and come up with a compromise campaign finance reform bill. In fact, it's the only Republican bill cobbled together that has attracted Democrats as co-sponsors. I think I now have five Democrat co-sponsors, and I have I think seven Republican co-sponsors.

Senator McConnell has agreed that we would have hearings on this bill in March in Rules Committee, and John has been very enthusiastic about it. He's been very easy to deal with because his point is this: If you do believe that we need campaign finance reform, then that should be the focus. He believes, obviously, that his bill is the best. He believes that he has the right formula for that equation.

But therein lies, I think, the essence of McCain. Let's get something done. Let's make progress. Let's advance the cause and deal with the problem. And that's why he's been encouraging, as I've worked with him, and he has said you deal with this the way you think is the right way to do it.

On the second issue of his relationship with colleagues, Bob spent a lot of time with John when he was in the House and Senate. They served on committees together. I've known John McCain for over 20 years. I've served with him just obviously recently in the Senate. I think Bob puts it exactly right. We have differences. Every colleague, be he Republican or Democrat, of John McCain understands I think, to some extent, what drives John McCain, and that is a strong belief about things, and he's willing to fight for those, and he's willing to take people on. And I think that should be about believing in things and carrying out what you think is right for this country.

And that means elevating the debate, that means breaking some eggs, that means taking the status quo on, that means taking institutions on. That seems to me to be the strength of this country, and I think John McCain understands that about as well as anybody I've ever worked with. Are there differences with the leadership? Absolutely. But I have never known John McCain ever to get personal with any United States Senator. Bob may have a different experience. That's not the way he operates. He will take you on, absolutely, to your face. I kind of like that, actually. I don't see that as any kind of a negative. I think that's a positive.

I would tell you, too, one of the questions asked about how he deals with his staff and subordinates, what I've always found amusing about this so-called temper issue, Senators, and governors and big shots don't like to be taken on. It doesn't make any difference if you're an elevator operator, does it, or if you work for a Senator, does it? John McCain doesn't do that. And I think therein, again, lies some strength there that would hold this country in very good stead if he was president of the United States.

So I am like Bob Packwood. I don't worry about any of the differences. That's natural, and that's the way it should be, and I admire McCain for taking on the status quo.

MR. BROOKS: Have either, maybe anybody on the panel, detected any resentment among colleagues that during the campaign he has attacked the institution more than need be? Sometimes you hear that from Mitch McConnell and others. "He's calling us all corrupt. Who of us are corrupt?" Is Congress really corrupt? Have you heard any signs of resentment over that?

SENATOR PACKWOOD: I haven't heard serious ones, but John is not the first person that has run against the Congress while in the Congress or certainly run against the Congress if they weren't in the Congress. It is an unfortunate attribute of too many politicians. We demean ourselves by running against ourselves and then wonder why the public is mad at ourselves.

MR. BROOKS: Let me ask Helen Dewar. Sometimes, especially watching the presidential debates, it seems all roads lead to campaign finance. He'll be asked about taxes, and he'll go into the, "My friends, we can't tackle that until we get the special interests." He'll be asked about education, "My friends, we can't tackle that until we get to the special interests." Defense, "The special interests are blocking true defense reform."

My question is does he seem to have flagging interest on some of the key issues like education and Medicare? Do you get the sense that he cares about them, but maybe not as much, and maybe a McCain administration wouldn't emphasize those issues as much?

MS. DEWAR: I'm not sure. I think mainly what he's doing is--or I get the sense of what he's trying to do is use campaign finance as kind of an umbrella issue or sort of basic fundamental explanation of why things don't happen as people want them to happen in Washington. The whole idea that so long as you have corruption of special interest money into the system, the average person is left out, cynicism grows, they don't participate, they don't have the voice that they should, that kind of thing.

And it becomes an easy explanation for everything and also an underlying theme that gives some cohesiveness to his campaign. Whether it also is used to explain the fact that he might not have as big and bold a tax plan or a social issues platform or whatever is open to argument. I don't know.

His interests certainly in Congress have been on foreign policy and military, systematic reform like campaign finance, cutting out what he regards as waste and Commerce issues, and a variety of other things that relate to Arizona--Native Americans and that kind of thing. But they haven't included economic policy very much and some of the other issues that other candidates emphasize.

SENATOR HAGEL: If I might, I'd like to respond very briefly to that.

I think what John has tried to do, to your point and your question, on campaign finance reform, not just using that as the great evil that dominates mankind, and if we just could fix that, the world would be pure and more decent, it's a connecting rod. That's his point.

His point is the special interests, whether you believe it or not, but it is his point--and I think, to some extent, it's right--special interest has so entangled the underbrush in this town, both sides-- conservatives, Democrats, Republicans--that to really move forward on legitimate tax reform--now, there are differences of philosophy on that--or education or any social issue, Social Security reform, Medicare reform. We've had a president of the United States for seven years that has not put forth any Social Security/Medicare reform. This is a Democratic president.

Why is that? Well, you draw your own conclusions. But McCain's point on campaign finance reform it so entangles because of the underbrush of the money and the influence, and John McCain is a product of that today on the front page of the papers across the country on this FCC letter. I mean, my goodness, if the chairman of the Oversight Committee of the FCC cannot send a letter asking about, "What about this? This thing has been going on for two years," then why do we need government? Why don't we disband Congress. But the point is this isn't just an issue for McCain. It's a connecting rod. Now, you might think he overstates it.

And the other thing I would say is that McCain, I was looking at some legislative issues that McCain has been involved in for 17 years. I mean, let's not forget McCain was, if not the number one guy, certainly one of the top two or three, as Bob knows, to move on line-item veto, reform in the Congress, the gift ban, repeal of catastrophic health insurance issues, the Social Security earnings test reduction, on, and on, and on, and on and on. So this a 17-year veteran of the Congress who has a wider and deeper interest than just military affairs.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Let me follow up on that, if I can, because I served with John for ten years on the Commerce Committee--Senate Commerce Committee. And that has jurisdiction over almost everything that moves--planes, and trains, and trucks and communications, which has been a subject of growing importance. It used to be telephones, and radio and television, and that was it. And so for ten years John and I dealt with those issues.

And I'm going to predict where he might come out. I'm not speaking for him, but I think I understand, one, on cable. He and I were the only two members of the Commerce Committee to vote against re-regulating cable television. And I think if he were president, he would say we're going to totally deregulate this and let them have at each other.

My guess is, apart from safety, which he is not going to jeopardize, he would move towards privatizing the air traffic control system, as Canada has done, as other countries are doing, and doing it quite well, and the airlines are making money on it, and it's just as safe.

I think he would say to the trucks and the railroads, "You're big boys. We're going to let you have at each other on transportation, and you don't need any government supervision to decide which of you gets to carry freight."

I think he would probably, if he could, apart from perhaps allocating frequency, get rid of the Federal Communication Commission, saying you can all get along with each other, and we're going to let the communication companies have at each other, and where there might be a monopoly, we'll let the Department of Justice take care of it in a normal way.

I'm not predicting what he would do. But based upon ten years of watching him in those areas, this man is a deregulator, and he's inclined to let competing forces go against each other, and it's a good, in my mind, a good trend.

MR. DIONNE: Speaking of the Federal Communications Commission, I'd like to ask Dan Schnur, now that he's gotten all comfortable here, about that little story in the Boston Globe the day before yesterday that's made some more news today.

MR. SCHNUR: That was the Celtics game?

MR. DIONNE: Did he write a letter on behalf of the Celtics, as well?

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: As people know, he wrote a letter to the FCC on behalf of a contributor, who is also lending his corporate plane to the campaign. I guess the question that arises is Senator McCain is running as Mr. Clean, yet he seems to think it's okay to do all of the other stuff connected to raising money, as long as the law hasn't changed. So he's raised a lot of money in connection with his chairmanship of the Commerce Committee from AT&T and others who do business with the committee, it's okay for him to write this letter. I was also struck by the timing of the letter, about two months before the New Hampshire primary.

Could you talk about this controversy? And what sense are we to make of this? Mr. Clean, on the one hand; doing all of these other kinds of things on the other hand.

MR. SCHNUR: Let me make two points. The first relates to one of your questions about contributions from those who have interests before the Senate Commerce Committee. As you know, and I know both the Senators know, between 80 and 90 percent of business conducted in America has some type of business before the Senate Commerce Committee.

If John McCain were not to take contributions from those whose interests fell under the auspices of the Senate Commerce Committee, he'd be limited largely to taking money from Chinese nationals, and I think we've already gone through that in a previous election cycle.

As it relates specifically to the Paxson matter, I think the most important point is to look at the letter that John McCain sent. In order for there to be a quid pro quo, there has to be a quo. And John McCain sent a letter to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as Senator Hagel referenced, that did not advocate that his contributor's stations' sale be approved. It, in fact, very specifically stated that he was not writing to advocate any particular action. Rather, John McCain stated in these letters, both to the chairman and the commissioners, that because the matter had been pending for more than two, in fact, the truth is more than three years, a matter that is normally resolved in six months or less, he was simply asking them to act in any way. And in contrast to several other members of Congress who wrote to the FCC specifically saying, "Approve this sale," or other members of Congress who wrote to the FCC specifically saying, "Reject the sale," John McCain went to great lengths saying, "I am not advocating a particular action. But as the chairman of the relevant oversight committee, it is my job to get on the federal bureaucracy when it is not responsive to its constituencies."

If he were to stop fulfilling that responsibility simply because he was running for president, I don't think that's a particularly attractive option either.

MR. DIONNE: Are you saying it's sheer accident that this is a contributor who lends the corporate plane to the Senator and that he is making this contribution--has made contributions to him, and he writes a letter.

MR. SCHNUR: Once again two issues, the first being that the letter was sent on behalf of a contributor. Dozens of letters have been sent since John McCain became chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee from McCain to the Commission complaining or criticizing about lack of speedy or lack of professional action on the part of the Commission and the staff. And those letters have come on behalf of contributors, but a much larger number have come on behalf of noncontributors--either Arizonans or other individuals around the country with interests in radio and television stations who have some reason for dealing with the Commission. So, number one, no, it had no relevance whatsoever to the fact that Mr. Paxson had contributed.

Second, as it relates to the airplane, I think it's worth noting that the Paxson Communications Airplane is available for use by every single member of Congress whenever it is not being used by the company itself. All 535 members of Congress, including those who oppose the sale of these television stations, have access to that plane when they want it. So, again, I don't see anything special that John McCain got that would not have been available to any other member of the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate.

SENATOR HAGEL: E.J., may I just add one thing?

In the interest of our viewers here, when you talk about borrowing a corporate plane, you pay for that. I want to make sure everybody understands that. I suspect in this audience, they do. But we're not talking about the goodness of a corporation giving a politician their plane for the day or the weekend. You pay first-class tickets, you pay the going rate.

MR. DIONNE: Which is much less than the actual cost of the plane, it should also be said.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, but quite frankly, the commercial airlines don't fly in and out of South Carolina and New Hampshire and all of these little places you have to get to. And by the way, this isn't a partisan issue--Democrats, Republicans and maybe it should be fixed. But to single out John McCain for that, I think is a little outrageous. Everybody uses that facility.

Now, you can debate whether we should do away with that, legitimate question. But two things, again, one, you pay for that plane, it's available to every politician that wants to pay for it. Gore, Bradley, Bush, everybody uses these kinds of things. I've used them. Everybody has. You pay for them, you disclose them, you fill out appropriate compliance regulatory paperwork. Everybody can go and look at them. So I think that's important that we point that out.

MR. SCHNUR: And not to get too hung up on what has rapidly become my favorite subject, but just as a follow-up, I think it's worth noting, a real relevance here between these kind of issues and John McCain's advocacy for strong and legitimate campaign finance reform.

John McCain, like every other member of Congress, with all due respect to the gentlemen to my right, could be found wanting, in terms of appearances, because they act as it is appropriate to their office. Sometimes that work benefits contributors and supporters, sometimes it hurts them. And I would give you a long, long list of actions that the Senator has taken as chairman of the Commerce Committee that has greatly angered those who contributed to his campaigns.

But the point is, and I think this is the broader point, and it's the reason he talks so frequently and with such passion about campaign finance reform is because of the way Americans look at their political system, the way they look at those who have been elected to govern them with such cynicism and such skepticism, if you don't start taking significant steps to clean up the system, you are never going to rid the process of that disillusionment and that disengagement.

You get rid of the soft money, you get rid of the big donors, you get rid of the special interests, you clean up the system, and there won't be a cloud over every elected official trying to do his job as best as he or she can.

MR. DIONNE: I think maybe we can have a session sometime on a bill to allow every American to travel on any corporate plane at first-class rates.

MR. BROOKS: Why don't we turn now to fiscal policy.

MR. DIONNE: We can get back to this, by the way, if there are people in the audience who want to get back to this issue later.

David?

MR. BROOKS: One of the blessed things about the McCain campaign is, as long as it's going on, my fax machine will never be lonely.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: And I saw a fax this morning which contrasts the McCain mature vision for America's future versus Bush's political plan for the 2000 election, and it's a contrast to the two tax plans and some other things. But one of the things that struck me was the attacks on the Bush tax plan. It says the Bush plan endangers Social Security, and it supports a pioneer tax cut, which is essentially a tax cut for the rich. The pioneers are Bush's rich donors.

And one of the things that struck me, and I'd like to direct this to Senator Packwood, who is our expert on finance matters, is the way this reflects a long debate in the Republican Party between supply siders on the one hand, and what people used to call the "green eyeshade" Republicans on the other. And McCain seems to be staking out ground which is not supply side, which does not emphasize steep and dramatic tax cuts, but more fiscal responsibility. And this may have something to do with the negative comment I read from Wall Street Journal Editor Robert Bartley earlier.

And I was wondering if you could comment on his instincts. Is this a reversal of what has been really 20 years of supply-side dominance on fiscal matters in the GOP?

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Yeah, but you need to know one bit of history when you talk about supply-side dominance, and this all comes from the tax cuts in 1981 and President Reagan, and you can have Bob Reischauer check the figures for you because I have the long letter from him. In 1981, when those tax cuts were passed, CBO and OMB were predicting $150- to $200 billion surpluses by 1985. Now, the reason being we hadn't indexed the tax code, inflation was running 14 or 15 percent, and we could collect about 1.7 percent more in revenue for every 1 percent of inflation.

And when the Reagan administration Treasury officials testified, they did not testify on a supply-side theory. They testified that there would be a dollar of tax reductions for a dollar of tax cuts. It was not a supply-side cut. No one foresaw the recession, no one foresaw the dramatic drop in inflation. But it was not a supply-side argument or cut at the time. I'm well familiar with the supply-side argument. I thought we'd ended that when we married Jack Kemp and Bob Dole in 1996, and we put them all together.

[Laughter.]

SENATOR PACKWOOD: But I think there's less than meets the eye or more than meets the eye. I don't know anybody now in the Congress, with this kind of a surplus, that is talking about tax cuts that put us into a deficit position. I think the only time you're likely to see that again is if we go into an immense depression or bad recession and somebody suggests tax cuts as pump priming, but I think that battle is over.

MR. BROOKS: But I'm right, and maybe Dan Schnur can correct me, I'm right in hearing that the McCain tax plan will not have as big a cuts as the Bush plan.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Go ahead.

MR. SCHNUR: In fact, when the Senator's tax plan is announced next Tuesday, it will include what we consider to be a very significant tax cut. But, no, it's not as large as Governor Bush's, and the reason for that is because Senator McCain has chosen to set aside more than 70 percent of the projected non-Social Security surplus for Social Security and Medicare.

And the fact sheet that you are reading from, David, blatant political rhetoric aside, I think makes a very legitimate point; that Governor Bush, by not setting aside a single dollar of the non-Social Security surplus for Social Security, leaves that program in great danger. We don't have any problem with a tax cut of the size that Governor Bush has proposed, as long as he can also legitimately argue how his proposal will save Social Security through the 21st Century. We haven't heard that yet. That's probably the major point of distinction between the two; a medium size tax cut from McCain, plus a Social Security solution, versus a larger tax cut on the part of Governor Bush.

MR. DIONNE: Could I ask Senator Hagel to comment on this? Because it seem, as David suggests, that you are opening up a rather, a new version of an old argument in the Republican Party in this debate between Senator McCain and George Bush on taxes.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, first, on the fact sheet that David pointed out. I have not talked to McCain in the last 24 hours, but at least if I can believe what I read in the newspapers, and I know I can, McCain pooh-poohed that and disavowed that essentially, and--

MR. DIONNE: I think just the headline.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, Dan was there. But I would offer whether John McCain did exactly what--and Dan can clarify that, but I think I'm right, that McCain didn't exactly applaud what he saw.

But I would say--I don't know who did it--but I thought that was a silly, dumb thing to do.

MR. SCHNUR: You were looking at one of many campaign staffers who was this morning in Senator McCain's wood shed as a result of that fax sheet. Although the information in it is factually correct, his problem, as you suggested, Senator, is with the rhetoric. But, factually, in terms of the comparison between the two plans, it's accurate.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, we'll move on there. But I think it was a silly way to say it and a dumb way to do it, and I hope we've made that mistake count now for being a little smarter in how we do that from now on.

On the merits of the issue. Bob understands this about as well as anybody in this country. You've got two fundamental issues here: One is the scoring that's done by CBO and OMB, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget. Both of those institutions still score on what's referred to as a static basis. They give no credit to tax-cut consequences. And it's pretty clear that, as you cut taxes, you generate revenues, and the tax base normally increases and one, two, three, four, five.

What should be done, and again McCain has talked about this in reform, is get to the reality of dynamic scoring. So that, in fact, you give credit to tax cuts, and you do build into those assumptions, and consequences and those numbers on the out years as to what would happen if you cut whatever tax. That's first.

Second, I think Bob is exactly right on the issue, is there some kind of a conflict or a dichotomy or a new revolution going on in the Republican Party on this issue. McCain's concern has always been, and I think he stated it very clearly, about how do you pay for the tax cuts. And I don't think that's a particularly irresponsible question.

I would hope a president who, to what this agenda is about, governance, responsible governance, we can say anything as candidates, but when you have the cold reality of governance staring you in the face as president, if you are going to send a tax package up to Congress and you're going to fight it, you better damn well know how you're going to pay for it, and where that money is going to come from, and are you going to cut education, are you going to cut defense, what are you going to cut? McCain's point has always revolved around that on tax cuts.

He has also, number two, E.J., never said that he wouldn't go back in or evaluate things as president and see the scoring dynamics of this and ask for a bigger cut, a wider cut. But this is something that he feels is responsible, that he can justify, he could pay for and, at the same time, do the other things that he thinks a responsible president needs to do to keep our government moving.

MR. SCHNUR: I'm sorry to horn in again, but just to add to Senator Hagel's last point about the potential for the surpluses. One thing you'll hear from the Senator over the next several days, through his tax speech next Tuesday, is that although one of his primary goals, as he has been articulating over several months, is to raise the 15-percent bracket up to $70,000, what he will do if the surpluses continue to come in, as conventional wisdom seems to expect, is work to continue to move that 15-percent bracket up gradually higher to get, David, for you and for Mr. Bartley, a flatter and fairer tax, but doing it from the bottom, rather than from the top.

So I think the point about the dynamic scoring and the further status of the budget that Senator Hagel made is an important one to keep in mind.

MR. DIONNE: I'd like to carry us back to Arizona with Mr. Kelley. I'd like to read a couple of quotations that were in a David Broder piece in The Washington Post last November. David quoted an estranged political associate of Senator McCain saying, "John is weakest where they know him best, in the Senate and at home."

And there is a quote from Governor Jane Hull, who is supporting Governor Bush, as you know. "I think there are a lot of people like myself in the community, well-respected citizens who have been here a long time, who are privy to John's temper and who are supporting Bush. Whether it's payback or not, they're just a lot more comfortable with Bush."

Could you talk some more? You talked a little bit earlier about where that comes from. I know from time in Arizona that Senator McCain has intervened in a lot of local political fights of the sort that most national politicians, most Senators, don't intervene. Could you talk about the roots of those kinds of quotations?

MR. KELLEY: Well, I think at least part of it is McCain, as has been noted, has been around as an Arizona member of Congress for 16/17 years. That's given him a lot of time to have a lot of interaction, both positive and negative, with politicians in Arizona. Obviously, they know him--Arizona politicians know him a lot better than, say, politicians in--local politicians in New Hampshire because they've had a lot more contact with him and a lot more opportunity to have both clashes and good experiences with him.

I think that Governor Hull and some of the other Republicans in Arizona who have had negative experiences with McCain I think that's showing. I think that, obviously, when you have someone who, like everybody says, is very strong in what he wants and what he believes is correct, that you're going to have conflicts with them. And I think that's showing in Arizona, and it's hurting. Although I really think that, in terms of what the public in Arizona thinks, granted, he hasn't really had, especially in '98, he didn't really have any credible opposition, but people still do like him. He seems to have--and this is tempered a lot with politicians because when you have the governor of a state, you have somebody who wants their own agenda and who is not going to be as warm to somebody who is trying to block that agenda or who has a different view than a voter who is saying, "Well, I don't agree with McCain, but I'll vote for him anyway because I like him personally."

When you're having a policy disagreement between two people who actually have political power, it becomes, it tends to become more of a wedge, more of a divisive thing.

MR. BROOKS: Good.

There's one Arizona conundrum that has made me curious. One of the people John McCain quotes quite often in conversation is Mo Udall, not only because Mo Udall is a funny guy and he retells the jokes, but also in more serious veins. Now does that say something about him? Does that reveal something?

MR. KELLEY: Yeah, he speaks very, very highly of Mo Udall. And Mo Udall also had a very good relationship with Barry Goldwater, the man that McCain replaced in the U.S. Senate from Arizona. And I do think that that says something about him; that he is obviously willing to publicly state his admiration and agreement, in some areas, with someone who is a Democrat and someone who is a quite liberal Democrat, especially for Arizona. That also comes out in some other ways. And it's part of--I think it's part of his at least public persona as a maverick, that he's willing to work with Democrats, and he's Russ Feingold's buddy on campaign finance reform.

And, also, I think it represents an understanding that, when you're talking about voters, there are very few real people out there who are so strongly partisan that they are going to just demonize everybody who is in the other party. I mean, I think he realizes that just because someone is in the other party doesn't mean that they necessarily have a wrong view on every single issue, and he's someone who is willing to buck the party.

A lot of people in Arizona don't really pay much attention to American Indian issues, and McCain is someone who has very good relations with tribal leaders, for the most part, and who was chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and is very committed to Indian issues, personally. That could be a liability to some Republicans, but it's something that he certainly says that he believes in a lot, and I think that's something that says something about him as a politician.

MR. DIONNE: Could we stay with that for one more moment? Because one of the other paradoxes of McCain is that he has much better relations with and gets much better treatment from the national press than from the Arizona press. I should disclose here, as Senator Hagel said, the Arizona Republic runs my column. God bless them.

And I've spent a lot of time out there. And I've heard a lot of stories about very prickly responses from Senator McCain to various kinds of criticism that I think most politicians would say in most cases is reasonable criticism. How do you explain this paradox of the national press having one attitude and a large chunk of the Arizona press seeming to have another?

MR. KELLEY: Yeah, it is a paradox. It's hard to explain. I've never been on the receiving end of any of Senator McCain's temper. So I guess I can't speak personally to that as much, although I know reporters from Arizona who have been.

I think a lot of it is that, again, with more exposure and more day-in and day-out dealings with someone like that, you have more of an opportunity to have screaming matches with somebody. I mean, just anyone who is a reporter in this town knows that just about any politician, any member of Congress, if you do something they don't like, will probably be on the phone screaming in your ear, and it doesn't matter whether they're Democrats or Republicans, and it doesn't matter whether they are conservative or liberal. If you piss them off, they're going to yell at you sometimes.

So I think that--

SENATOR HAGEL: That's the way it is in Arizona. It's not the way--

[Laughter.]

SENATOR HAGEL: We don't do that.

MR. SCHNUR: If I can just add, Matt, it's my impression from the trips I've made to Arizona since starting with Senator McCain, that, in fact, his relationships with most of the Arizona media-- the television, the radio, and the larger newspapers in other parts of the state--are fairly good. And to the extent that there's a difficulty, it's with a specific newspaper, as opposed to with the state press corps.

Is that accurate or--

MR. DIONNE: My sense is it's more complicated than that. It's not just The Republic.

MR. KELLEY: Yeah, it is a little more complicated than that, I think. And like I said, I've never been on the receiving end of his temper. I've never had a bad relationship with him so I can't really speak to the experience of the reporters that have. Although, like I said, I know reporters from more than just the Arizona Republic who have a--who believe they have a negative or, at the very least, frosty relationship with him.

MR. SCHNUR: My point being, though, that to the extent that there has been any kind of a difficulty beyond an isolated incident here and there, it is with a particular newspaper. And I've gone to The Republic, I've met with the editors, we've talked a lot of this out.

But what happened, as I think you know, E.J., is several years ago Senator McCain's wife, Cindy, was suffering from a very unfortunate situation where she developed an addiction to prescription painkillers. And The Republic during that controversy ran a very, very tasteless cartoon. The Senator stopped speaking to them for a while. They've since begun talking again. But I think that there is some lingering animosity on both sides from that episode, as you'd expect, or as I would expect from any man or woman defending his or her spouse, when he felt that they were unfairly treated in the news media.

MR. DIONNE: Helen wants to--

MS. DEWAR: I'd just like to add one other point. I've been in many states covering campaigns, and I mean I can truly say that there are a lot of Senators who have very prickly, difficult relations with their sort of major daily newspaper in their state. I think it's partly because of proximity and the intensity of local political issues, but it's kind of been written about as being somewhat unusual with McCain, and I don't know how unusual it is.

MR. DIONNE: I want to turn to David, but I think one of the paradoxes is that there is a much bigger gap between the national press and local press in McCain's case than I have personally ever seen with any other candidate, both positive on the national side and critical on the local level.

SENATOR HAGEL: E.J., may I just add one point on your quote about McCain, "Those who know him best seem to like him least."

I think, again, in the interest of full disclosure and fairness, which this forum is about, let's examine the facts in Arizona. Other than the governor of Arizona, every one of the state elected constitutional officers are supporting John McCain. The entire Republican congressional delegation, other than Bob Stump, who is neutral, a Congressman, is supporting John McCain. Virtually every elected GOP official in Arizona is supporting John McCain. So the governor is not, granted. But I think we should get the rest of the story out.

MR. BROOKS: Why don't we move on. I'm tempted to talk about how great it is to be on the McCain bus. It is the most fun thing you can do in journalism. There's no question about that.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: But let me talk to more governance issues, which is to the Senator from the genteel State, I guess, of Nebraska we now learned--

SENATOR HAGEL: God bless you, David. Thank you.

MR. BROOKS: One of the interesting things about McCain is, while he's obviously a maverick, he also has some establishmentarian instincts about him. In some ways, he's very orthodox--I think Helen may have intimated this--orthodox Republican on many issues. For example, when you ask him what would he do with China, he says, "Well, we'll send Brent Scowcroft, and Henry Kissinger and our best State Department over there, and we're going to tell them exactly what we think." And he'll say, "Wouldn't Colin Powell be a great Secretary of State?" Which, indeed, he may be, but it is sort of an establishmentarian instinct I think to say that.

And I was wondering if you could, one of the inferences you could draw from that is that a McCain administration, in its staffing, would look a little like the way a Dole administration would have looked like. And I was wondering if you could talk to that. And also I'd like to bring back the question I asked earlier about the structure of the White House, how you think he would handle the cabinet, the White House staff. Would he change the structure? Is it your instinct that he has ideas about that or he has ideas about the way Clinton or Reagan or Bush ran his White House.

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, David, I'll leave that last question to the end because I think Bob Packwood handled that pretty well, but I would add a couple of things. But let's start with your first point.

I have said from the beginning of my support, enthusiastic support, of John McCain that this is a mainstream conservative Republican. And why do I say it? For exactly the reason you just mentioned. You look at 17 years of a voting record, not speeches, not hyperbole, not what I would do, but what, in fact, he has done, based on how he has voted. And this is a conservative mainstream voting record: pro-life, military institutions, you take the vote.

Now, is there something that disconnects when you talk about a conservative Republican wanting to reform government? My goodness. When John McCain takes on the pork barrel spending, isn't that about as conservative Republican an issue as there is? I always have found that amazing when John is criticized for that aspect of taking on the institution. Leave the good old boys alone. Let them roll in their pork and their lard. That's not conservative Republican politics. He wants an accountable government.

And you take all of the voting records, you take his ability to say it straight, and plain and force reform, force government accountability, I think that fits pretty well with the Republican philosophy.

As to your second question on what a McCain White House would look like, I think Bob Packwood summed that up pretty well. I would only add that John McCain would find the absolute best, most qualified people to serve in his administration. There is no question that this reform attitude that he has toward government cuts right to what Bob Packwood talked about after serving with him on the Commerce Committee for ten years. He is a reformer. He does want a government and a nation of less regulation, of let the marketplace play.

But at the same time, this is a guy--again, reflected by 17 years of votes--who understands the guy at the bottom. Look at his tax code emphasis, any other dimension of what he has said and fought for, his championing of Indian rights and the water resources. This is a guy who does not forget the guy at the bottom. And I think it would be a well-balanced administration. As Bob said, he would be commander-in-chief, he'd be chief of staff. There'd be little question about that. I find that particularly attractive. I want a president like Harry Truman, who is engaged, who knows the issues. He knows, John McCain knows he doesn't have all of the answers, but he would find absolutely the best people.

I'll give you one quick example of that. When John McCain came to see me early this year about endorsing him and helping him on the campaign, I asked him one question, and that question was this: On what basis would you make a vice presidential selection and selection of a cabinet?

He didn't blink, he didn't hesitate. He said: On one basis, and that is who, on the vice presidential pick, would be the most capable individual, who could run this country if something happened to me. I don't care what color, I don't care what creed, I don't care what sex. That is the only test, as he would do with judges, as he would do with his cabinet. That satisfied me. And I think this country would do well with a president like that.

MR. DIONNE: I thought you were going to say the answer was Hagel.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: Or maybe that is what you said, in fact.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: I want to follow up on David's question with Helen, that one of the paradoxes is, if John McCain is so conservative, which, in fact, his record is, why do liberals like him so much? Or, alternatively, if John McCain is so conservative, why don't conservative idealogues like him more? And the current issue of the American--

MR. BROOKS: Conservative intellectuals, you mean.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: You said ideologues.

MR. DIONNE: Yeah, ideologues, like I said.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: In the current issue of The American Prospect, there is a headline, "The Real John McCain Sounds a Lot Like the Real Steve Forbes."

Could you talk about this paradox with McCain, Helen?

MS. DEWAR: I suspect some of it is, if you look at conservatives, they take a lot of McCain's conservative positions sort of for granted, that this is what a Republican does, say, votes on tax policy, votes on social programs, that kind of thing. It's the kind of issues that McCain has put up front and sort of in their faces that they tend to gag on.

Campaign finance is funny because there's the issue of campaign finance itself, and then there is the issue of what a specific proposal dealing with issue ads that was in the bill, at least up until now, what this would do to many conservative advocacy groups. And I think the reason why a lot of them see red on the bill is because of that provision, as much as it is the provision in the bill.

I think Senator Hagel made the point about why is it against the conservative grain to be against pork barrel spending or campaign finance? I think with campaign finance it becomes much more of a partisan issue, that Republicans, Senator McConnell and Senator Lott, see it as a blow to the Republican Party--I mean, forget about ideology. That because they have an advantage in raising money to combat other advantages that the Democrats have, and they cite unions, for instance, that it would be unilateral disarmament for the party to support it, and they accuse McCain of supporting something that essentially would undermine his own party.

MR. DIONNE: And liberals are just the mirror of that then?

MS. DEWAR: A lot of liberals, at least when I've talked to them, will talk about his gutsiness, they talk about the fact that he has helped them on issues like campaign finance or that he's taken the position he has on campaign finance. And pork barrel spending, they've gotten hit as much as the Republicans have. I think it's more, for them it's more of a feeling for a style and for some of the causes that he has championed.

MR. SCHNUR: But, Helen, as we talked about earlier, don't you think some of the Democratic ease with campaign finance reform is their security in the knowledge that it's never going to pass?

MS. DEWAR: That may be. And that has been the case in the past. But on the other hand, they have, you know, they have stuck with McCain. Now, whether a lot of them are going to stick with your latest version of it, I don't know. But, I mean, we'll never know. But so long as it doesn't pass, one can write that either way.

MR. BROOKS: Let me go to one last question before we go to the audience for questions, and that's to Dan Schnur. Because I do think the coverage of the press, which we've touched on, is really revolutionary the way McCain deals with the press, and it would have to affect his presidency, if past is anything like prologue. And you imagine him moving the White House press room into the Oval Office, with Sam Donaldson on the couch while he's operating.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: And my question is why do we love him so much? Actually, at The Weekly Standard we have debates about this, and there are a variety of theories. One is that it's just the access, the amazing access, which is unprecedented; two, he seems liberal and reporters like liberal Republicans, for some reason; third, Vietnam. None of us served, so we feel guilty and like people who did.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: And fourth, it's the flattery level, which is not to be underestimated. He introduces reporters to crowds when he speaks to them, if you're on the trail. My colleague, Andy Ferguson, was covering him, and he said, "I'd like to introduce you to Andrew Ferguson, who is a freelancer for Hustler magazine."

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: And when Dan Rather was with him, he said, "I'd like to introduce you to Dan Rather from Pravda, as you know."

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: And so there are all of these things that key in and, as I said, there's nothing more fun in politics, political journalism, almost than covering him.

What would--I can't imagine that would clam up if he were to be elected. What would it be like and how would it affect his presidency?

MR. SCHNUR: Well, first, just so you don't feel singled out about being held up before crowds. As an example, I am regularly pointed out to crowds as having just been hired off of a work release program.

[Laughter.]

MR. SCHNUR: So it works for staff, also. I haven't had the heart to tell him, but--

[Laughter.]

MR. SCHNUR: As Senator Hagel said, John McCain would not only be president, but he would be his own chief of staff. He would certainly be his own press secretary and communications director.

MR. BROOKS: And deputy press secretary, and all of the others.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: This is getting scary.

[Laughter.]

MR. SCHNUR: It'll present an interesting challenge not just in the Oval Office, but even later in the campaign as the level of press coverage increases. There was a piece done by Dana Millbank recently in which he recalled with some fondness traveling around the back woods of New Hampshire with John McCain, one other reporter and a driver. Well, now, if there are 100 reporters traveling, they don't all get to sit next to John McCain and hear him talk about eating Bambi's mother for dinner the night before or if they do, it's 40 or 50 times in a row.

In the White House, it's obviously--it would be a difficult challenge. But I think what would happen are two things: One, you would see a level of access that you haven't seen in a White House in quite some time, and I think that's a good thing. Because as your question raises, I think one of the reasons that the coverage of the Senator has been, by and large, favorable is that reporters have had access. It is only natural that if you have a chance to get to know someone, get to understand them, get to know what they're about and what they believe, that you're going to cover what they say in a speech or in a press conference in some greater context.

I do not mean this as a criticism of Governor Bush. In fact, I worked with him on his father's campaign in 1988, and he's a good man, and he's a smart man. But I suspect he would not have run into as much trouble with the pop quiz he got in Boston if he had been sitting in the back of the bus with reporters each day talking about foreign policy.

John McCain sits back there day in and day out, as you know, and they talk movies, and we talk sports, and you talk weather, but you also talk for an hour and fifteen minutes about the different leadership options in Ireland. You spend hours, and hours and hours talking about not just the current situation in Central America, but its history. And as reporters get a sense of a person in their entirety, I think, one, just logistically it makes them easier to cover that person. It's awfully tough to write a story when someone says, "No comment. Talk to my press secretary." So I think the access makes it easier to write.

But I think there's another more important element to it. It's not just access, it's what he does with it. John McCain, for good or for bad, and there is bad, gives direct answers to direct questions, constantly and incessantly, and there are times when it causes us problems. They'll call in from the road, and they'll say, "Well, it was a three-wince day" because he said three things that we winced at.

The day of his defense speech, a group of reporters asked him what was new in the speech. He said, "Oh, nothing new at all. I've been saying this stuff all along." Well, that was a two-wince day.

I think the fact that he's willing to be not just so accessible, but as elementary as it sounds, answer direct questions with direct answers has helped him, not only in terms of favorable press coverage, but in favorable response from the voters who had most prolonged exposure to him in New Hampshire. They like that he'll stay at a town hall for two hours and answer every single question in the depth and breadth that it deserves. It's not just a style of press relations, it's a style of governing.

And I would argue that, particularly after the last seven years of the Clinton-Gore administration, and to a lesser extent some of their predecessors, the accessibility, but also the openness and the directness is going to be welcome not just from the press, but from the American people

MR. DIONNE: Why don't we get a mike to Georgie Ann Geyer, who will ask the first question. Do we have our mike here? And then Steve Hess.

While the mike is getting here. Let me ask Helen and Senator Hagel to touch on foreign policy, and I think that's where Georgie is going. We've got the mike to her. So go ahead, Georgie.

MS. GEYER: Yes. I'd like to ask, given the Senator's extraordinary military background and the fact that so many of our military moves in the world are now in peacekeeping, in coordination with other organizations, and have been, as many of us see it, rather stopped in places like Bosnia and Kosovo, what is the Senator's ideas about how our military should be used, particularly in these kinds of groupings?

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, Senator McCain has been rather direct in addressing that question, not just during the campaign, but over the last couple of years, certainly the last three years I've served with him in the Senate. And he starts with this premise: Just adding more money to the Pentagon budget is not going to fix the problem; the problem being, as always, in every generation, there are new generations of challenges.

And in a world now of six billion people that is interconnected, in a world where essentially there are no boundaries, no longer in a bipolar world, in a world of weapons of mass destruction, our national security structure and institutions have to change to meet those challenges. But that is also precipitated on a policy, a foreign policy. What is it the United States should do, wants to do? What are the objectives and the clear policies as to where we are in the world, and for what reasons and what is the role of America?

The American national security apparatus has always been the guarantor of our foreign policy. So what would he do? He has spoken out very clearly about changes in the Navy and the kind of weaponry, the sophistication of that weaponry. He's talked about the morale of our armed forces. You know our recruitment, retention, readiness problems are as bad, measurably bad, as since the late '70s. He said we need more money, but it isn't going to start or end with just more money. So he's laid out some very specific areas that he thinks that we're going to have to deal with and address. But at the same time, and Bob alluded to this, we need a president who, in fact, is commander-in-chief. We need a president who understands that. We have to have a president who connects the dots with what is America's role in the world, what is our policy, what kind of national security institution do we need in this changing world? And I think he would be very actively engaged not only in that debate, but coming up with solutions.

MR. DIONNE: Could I ask Helen, before we turn to Steve Hess, reading through your very good clips recently, one of the interesting things about McCain on foreign policy is that when the initial discussion of Bosnia came up, he was very much against American intervention in Bosnia. Then he cooperated with Senator Dole, in support of intervention in Bosnia, and then became a leading supporter of the action in Kosovo. What is your sense of this evolution in McCain's thinking? Is there a change in thinking or what's your sense of where he is?

MS. DEWAR: It struck me that on most crises that have come up he has been very critical of the administration policy and the way the whole situation evolved. When it's come to the point where there has been a commitment of force or a decision to go ahead with military force, and it may be the military man in him, that he has saluted, basically, and supported the presidential position. This was a position that Senator Dole had too.

So I think it's been, on most issues, fairly consistent. On Kosovo, as I recall, he teamed up with I think Senator Lieberman and some others to pass a resolution that, in effect, authorized ground troops and the idea being that NATO couldn't accomplish its objectives without at least the threat of the door open to ground troops and to a widening of the war. So it was more sort of a strategic thing rather than a changing of position.

One thing I wonder, though, if I could ask Senator Hagel, one of the criticisms he's had of the Clinton administration has been the lack of kind of a cohesive post-Cold War foreign policy, whatever. And yet, so far, I haven't read that much about what his would be. You mentioned some very sort of narrow specifics. But in terms of that which he criticized the administration most for, what is it?

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, as you know he has been rather direct in his evaluation of this administration's foreign policy, and I think it could be safely summarized by saying he believes it's been a policy of ricocheting from crisis to crisis with no overall bigger picture as, for example, how we deal with Russia. And he's been rather specific in what he thinks that we should have been doing to develop a policy toward Russia since the implosion of the Soviet Union ten years ago, that we've essentially squandered that time.

China, how that connects with trade. We've got a president who has been without a fast-track trade authority since 1994, unprecedented, for whatever bizarre reason. What he has said, and again he's spoken out very clearly on this, you must connect all of the pieces here; trade, foreign policy, our role in the world, all of the dynamics of foreign policy. He's spoke of it in his foreign policy speech, and I think you'll hear more of the specifics on it.

Your point on Kosovo and the question about Mr. Hess's articles on the evolution of his thinking. Obviously, he, like all of us who experienced Vietnam in a real sense, are conditioned by that experience. And I think most all of us from that generation who fought in Vietnam subscribe to Colin Powell's theory of maximum force, minimum time.

And we learned very clearly, and here's Madam Ambassador Kirkpatrick sitting in the front row understands this better than anybody, you better understand what your objective is. And once that objective is clear enough, if you are committed then the to nation, and the treasurer and all of the resources it takes to do it, then do it. One of the criticisms he's had about this administration, and he's come back and said, for example, in Kosovo, if you're going to go into Kosovo--and he supported that for all of the reasons he said--then why in the world would you take off the table, arbitrarily, unilaterally, one of the great superior additions that we have in our military capability, ground forces?

And he laid out--and you're right. It was Senator Lieberman, and Senator Biden and some other Democrats, and I was involved in that--he laid out a very detailed proscription as to how he would have done that, how we should have done that. And I think, in my opinion, he was right. There were thousands and thousands of needless civilian casualties at bombing at 15,000 feet, and what did we accomplish? But that's a debate for another day. So I think he's been rather specific about it, actually.

MR BROOKS: Can I just push this one more lap? One of the phrases that's recurred in his speeches is the phrase "rogue state rollback." The idea being that if somebody like Saddam Hussein is out there, we don't just contain him, we try to roll him back actively. And that does imply a more interventionist foreign policy approach than a lot of Republicans, and a lot of congressional Republicans especially, support.

And yet, on the defense spending side, he has supported a lesser ramp-up of defense spending--Dan Schnur is shaking his head--but my impression is that less than many of the other certainly Republican campaigns, and maybe even some of the Democratic campaigns. And what he has done is emphasized, well, we're going to get rid of the wasteful programs and channel that money to the successful ones.

Those wasteful programs are there for a reason. They may be wasteful, but they are there. And my question, maybe to the two Senators or Helen, is how realistic to think that we can really get rid of those programs to fund the good things and while many Republicans think we need much more defense spending? Is this being overly cautious and overly, is this a little Chicken Hawk or what was John Kasich's phrase, "Cheap Hawk disease" coming to bear?

Maybe Senator Packwood.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: Well, I think I know what John would do, and, Chuck, you can check me on this if I'm wrong. But he'd play a game of chicken all right. And if there's a bunch of pork in the bill, John would look him down, he'd veto it. And then the threat would come from Congress. "All right, Mr. President. By God, you're not going to get X." He says, "Try me." And I can just see what will happen in that game, and the President usually wins, and John McCain would win that, but I don't think he's going to be buffaloed into accepting what he regards as unjustified pork in a bill that has things in it he wants. He'll run the risk of calling their bluff, and he'll win most of them.

MR. HAGEL: I might just add, I agree completely with Bob's point, but to your specific question, how do you get rid of programs, or are there such programs? He's been very direct about taking on aircraft carriers the Pentagon has consistently said we don't need. We continue to build C-130s out of Georgia. The Pentagon for 10 years has been saying, "We don't need them." That's what he's talking about. They're very identifiable.

National security budgets should never be used--and he has been, again, very clear about this, not just since he's been running for President, but for 17 years--as job generators. National security resources should not be used as economic engines, they should be used for one thing, our national security interest, and that should be the most defining point of all decisions on national security budgets. As far as your point on--Dan may have something to add here--John McCain being less than enthusiastic about increases in defense spending, I'm not aware of any of those. Dan may know or you may know, but again I say what he has said, and I repeat, he has always said that it isn't just throwing more money at it, it's reform in the military as well. And where do you start that reform? With these projects that the people, the warriors, those we charge with our national security, the sergeants, the captains, the generals, the admirals, when they say to the Congress, "We don't need those. Believe us, we don't need any more of those", but yet we just keep larding it on and larding it on. That's what he's talking about. Prioritize those resources and then you don't need to just keep throwing billions and billions and billions more into the defense pot, and we'll work on some other problems in this country.

MR DIONNE: Could I bring in Steve, and then you can come back in? Steve's been very patient there.

MR. HESS: Not patient. Just have a question.

I was pleased to hear Senator Hagel say that a President McCain would pick the very best people in his administration. I assume that differs from the other candidates, whose platform--

[Laughter.]

SENATOR HAGEL: You'd have to ask them that question. I'm here for McCain.

[Laughter.]

MR. HESS: Exactly. But I wonder. Dwight Eisenhower, who looked around to pick the very best people and chose all 63-year-old white male protestants, and the were the very best people.

So the question is really, what can we learn? What does his staff, his senate staff look like? Tell us about his senate staff. Tell us about his campaign staff. What clues do we have on who he picks in terms of gender, in terms of race, in terms of ethnicity, and so forth? What can we learn from what he has already chosen for his staffs?

MR. SCHNUR: I think the most important thing you can learn from the composition of the Senator's staff, both on the campaign and in his senate offices, the thing that sticks out most and first is that of loyalty, and this gets back to the whole question about temper and whether you yell at colleagues or at underlings. And as was mentioned on this panel, whatever history the Senator has for speaking his mind in a fairly forceful way to colleagues, I'm not aware--and I've only been with him a fairly short time; I've gotten to know the people who have been around him for many, many years, and they are loyal to him because he treats them well and because he relies on them.

His chief of staff has been with him for 15 years. Our issues director on the campaign has been with him for 17 years. The director of the Arizona office, Deb has been there for 10 or 11 years. You can go right down the line and find people--and this, as the Senators, and as Helen and Matt both know--this is really unusual for Capitol Hill. One person after another on his staff have been with him 10, 12, 14, 15 years. So on the question of temper, but also on staff, the first attribute you'll notice is longevity.

In terms of the make up of the staff, the director of our Arizona campaign, Deb Gullett, is a woman. Our finance director, Carla Uti [ph], is a woman. One of our two press secretaries, Nancy Ives, is a woman. And what you'll find throughout the staff, low, medium and high level, is a degree of diversity that I think is, if not representative, a bit beyond that for what you'd find in the presidential field, certainly on the Republican side.

But to your point--and I know it's not what you were asking--I think loyalty and time served is the most noticeable quality.

Can I get back to David's point just very quickly, because I have some specific answers for you?

The Senator has in fact, David, argued for an increase in defense spending of roughly $20 billion a year for the next 5 or 6 years. He will fund that, as a fiscal conservative should, by eliminating or deprioritizing existing defense projects. Now, on one hand, as the Senator suggested, that's pork and that's wasteful spending. It's also cutting down on the number of US foreign commitments and entanglements, that they could be much more particular in where he deployed US troops, which, as you know, is also a recruitment issue. The balance of it is actually identified on our website with unnecessary spending he would eliminate on the domestic side. But the short answer is he would commit to an additional $20 billion a year for the next 5 or 6 years, and that is all paid for by reductions in existing spending. So you may have heard more on the trail about how he got rid of the unnecessary pork, but don't mistake that for a lack of commitment for America's military preparedness.

MR. DIONNE: But just to be clear on that, that means that the number would stay the same, but he'd shift 20 billion our of programs he doesn't think would work?

MR. SCHNUR: No. Like I said, a significant portion of it comes out of the defense budget, more than half, but I believe--and I'd have to check on the numbers for you, E.J.--roughly $7 billion of that 20 would come from the elimination of what he considers to be unnecessary domestic spending. So there would be a net increase in the defense budget, but the practical effect, toward your question, would be an increase in $20 billion a year.

MR. DIONNE: The gentleman over here has been very patient.

MR. WEBER: Hello. My name is Ben Weber with the Korea Economic Institute of America. I have one question that actually Senator Hagel raised a couple of times, and as well as Daniel, and that is, John McCain, the man. You indicated, yes, he would be commander-in-chief, but also that he would be a chief of staff.

Two decades ago we had a President that also played very much a chief-of-staff type of role, and some would say that he was bogged down and did not have the ability to delegate authority appropriately.

Now, knowing that John McCain would pick such a qualified cabinet and staff, will this inhibit his administration to act effectively?

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, when I talk about chief-of-staff--and Senator Packwood, obviously, will respond in his own way what he meant--my frame of reference on the chief-of-staff was not somebody who is checking the tennis court availabilities, but someone who knows where he wants to take his government, and someone who will help take that objective, and where he wants to take America in the world, and help implement that. That's my framing of a chief-of-staff. Versus handing it over to a titled official in the White House, chief-of-staff, whatever, and say, "Okay, you go do it, and then give me the report tomorrow morning." That's my framing up of that.

I appreciate your question, and I understand what you've said, and I think it is something that one must be careful of.

I would only add this--and I'm sure Senator Packwood would want to talk a little bit about this--you know, as good as John McCain is, I think, and we have other very good candidates as well, nobody ever knows. And you ask the Presidents who have served, "How would you do this?" I mean, we all talk about this. We have good intentions and this would--we've been talking about this the last two hours, what kind of a President would McCain make, how would he organize things and so on, nobody knows until McCain gets there, until George Bush gets there, whoever it will be. They will then have to be flexible to make that governance, his responsibility, fit. And therefore, we can't predict with any great accuracy, other than the fact that I've always believed that we all in life have track records, and we all, as I said in my comments this morning, come from a base of experience and knowledge and environment that we were developed and nurtured in, and that's the best, I think, way to tell--plus McCain's got 17 years of a voting record--on what kind of a guy he'd be.

But I don't pretend to sit up here this morning and tell you that I have this figured out, if McCain's President, how he's going to do it. I'd give you my best sense of, generally speaking, how he would--in my opinion--most likely frame up his role in the White House.

SENATOR PACKWOOD: I used the term chief-of-staff in the wrong sense when I said John will be his own chief-of-staff. What I mean is John will be in charge, and no one will have any doubt who is in charge. But I can give you some personal experience that may indicate how he operates.

Ellen Cahill is his scheduling secretary, and if I want to get in to see him, I'll call Ellen. And sometimes she lets me in, and sometimes she doesn't let me in. But she makes the decision. She doesn't say, "I'll call you back", or "I'll talk to John", of "I'll talk to the Senator." So he has delegated to her the gatekeeper role, and appropriately. He can't be passing on everyone.

The second situation is Pete Belvin. Pete is a woman. She does his communications. So I have some lobbying clients. I'll call up Pete, and she'll make decisions on his behalf, but on occasion she'll say, "That's a bigger one than I think I ought to make."

I mean, I find it just about the right approach of delegation without the staff thinking they are the senator.

MR. DIONNE: Susan Feeney of the Dallas Morning News and then Sebastian [Mallaby].

MS. FEENEY: I think this is a question for the Senators or for Dan, and it came up as well earlier in the week concerning Senator Bradley. I see both of them as politicians who find issues and throw themselves behind those issues. What's harder for me to understand, and I think a lot of reporters, is what animates particular issues for, in this case, Senator McCain? What is it that you've seen that made him dive into a particular issue as opposed to something else?

SENATOR HAGEL: Well, I'll take a quick stab at it, and I know Dan and Bob would want to add something.

None of us can get into the minds of anybody else, and we appreciate that. But my sense of John McCain is he has a very finely-honed sense of responsibility to his country, and with that, he has a very sharp appreciation for those at the bottom in justice, appreciation of what needs to be done to deal with social injustice, global injustice, and I think when you look at his 17-year record, your question, what makes him so committed to campaign finance reform and other issues, I do believe those two dynamics of John McCain drive him about as much as anything else does, and I don't tend to--or don't make any effort to try and psychoanalyze anybody, but that's just my sense of knowing him for 20 years and serving with him for a few years in the Senate.

MR. DIONNE: But to follow up on Susan's question, why would it be, say, campaign reform, yes, but not, say, education or welfare? In other words, there are a number of issues that McCain has not focused on very much either in his Senate career or in the campaign. Could somebody talk about that? Helen or Dan or--

MR. SCHNUR: Well, as I think Helen reference earlier, campaign finance reform, as the Senator articulates it, is what he sees as a gateway to the reform of those other issues. So for him it's not an either/or. You're not fixing campaign finance as an abstract. You're not fixing it just so you can say you did, and feel good about it. You're getting the special interest side of politics, so that you can get the insurance companies off the Republicans' back and the trial lawyers off the Democrats' back, and get health care reform.

You're doing campaign finance in order to get the corporate interests out of the mix, so you can get real tax reform.

MR. DIONNE: You're giving David's speech.

[Laughter.]

MR. SCHNUR: Unintentionally, but I'm happy to credit--I would just add, real quick, is what I have not seen in him, in the relatively short time I have known him, compared to them, compared to many other elected office-holders and candidates, I see a tremendous lack of ego, and often--and I'm not speaking for the gentlemen on this stage--but what I've seen in the California legislature during my years out there, and in Congress, from a distance, is when an issue is "hot," when it's sexy, when the cameras are all around it, you tend to find a lot of politicians around it also.

John McCain has some very strong opinions on education reform. I spent seven hours listening to him, his advisors go through them this past Sunday. There's a lot of people working on it.

No one was taking up the cudgel for campaign finance reform. No one was working to get the special interests out of the process. He felt it needed to be done, and even if it wasn't getting the attention that some of the other issues were, I suspect that was part of the motivation.

MR. DIONNE: Helen.

MS. DEWAR: Just a minor point but I think sometimes it's not also by choice. I mean, I think he was drawn into it, to some extent, by virtue of his unpleasant experience from the Keating Five situation, and then he sort of got his feet wet on the lobbying disclosure, and whatever, and, hey, you know, this turned out to work, and was kind a fun, and whatever, and why not go all the way and go for campaign finance. So things impinge on their own experience, I think, that makes them choose one path over another.

MR. BROOKS: I'd like to just ask Helen a quick question on something somebody's mentioned before, which is that it'll probably be a closely divided Congress next time, great difficulty holding majorities together.

How do you imagine a President McCain, maybe with a narrow Republican majority, would hold together his party, especially some conservatives who may not be thrilled with him, and how would he do it vis-a-vis maybe some of the other candidates?

MS. DEWAR: It probably depends on a lot of things. I mean, if he came out of it, even though the vote was--with a perception of a mandate for just the kind of change he's talked about, and rattling the cage, and, you know, changing the status quo on campaign finance, then he might be able to move it.

On some issues he could probably forge--or maybe forge a majority with Democrats, such as campaign finance. It just seems that he might have a lot of Republicans, not all, but a lot of Republicans out there nursing some grudges, or having the feeling that he was not properly representing the Republican agenda. It's hard to tell because it would depend on how the campaign turned out.

But you can see problems for anyone of the, you know, the main contenders, and certainly for him--for him it would be different, I think, because of the problem he would have with his own base in Congress. On the other hand, if he used the White House as a bully pulpit, you know, in the manner of his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, he might feel that he could then pump up a public response that would move a skeptical Congress.

MR. DIONNE: Sebastian Mallaby and then David and I both love Teddy Roosevelt, but I'll let David ask the Teddy Roosevelt question.

Sebastian.

MR. MALLABY: Thank you. I guess apart from campaign finance, the issue which John McCain was most publicly associated with in the Senate in the last few years was the tobacco deal, and at the congressional level that didn't work, just like campaign finance hasn't worked.

So I'm wondering whether perhaps Senator Packwood could recall a sort of big legislative project which rises, say, to the level of the '86 tax reform which we talked about at the last session, where Bradley was on this issue from '83 and then till '86, working it, and ultimately even coming up with the sort of last-minute idea which would get everyone to vote for it.

Is there any example in McCain's congressional career of taking an issue of that scale and actually pushing it to success?

SENATOR PACKWOOD: One, it's helpful when you're a committee chairman as opposed to being in the minority, to carry things to success; but I'll go back to my Commerce Committee days with John. He was an absolute bulldog on deregulation of industries, whether it was communications, whether it was airlines, whether it was trucks, that he thought were big enough to stand up to their competitors and didn't need the Government looking over their shoulder. The particular one is cable television, in which he just said this is ridiculous, that the Government is telling them and regulating them, and wanting to help set their prices, and trying to tell them what to put on the air, and he was dynamite at it, and it was an up and down process.

We deregulated them in the mid '80s. Then we re-regulated them,