Barack Obama takes a "no drama" approach to bipartisan politics; John McCain takes a more aggressive, assertive approach to bipartisan efforts. With a Democratic Congress, Obama may have the ability to claim that there is widespread public support for moving the country in a more progressive direction. However, this pressure to implement more Democratic policies conflicts with the notion that Obama would lead in a bipartisan manner. For Obama, success will likely come if he can effectively balance the competing policy preferences of his Democratic base and of those who want him to reach across the political aisle.

Research Fellow John C. Fortier

My last column looked at how John McCain would govern if elected to the White House. This one looks at Barack Obama.

Obama's legislative career has been spent mostly in the minority of the Illinois state Senate and United States Senate. He has modest but bipartisan accomplishments in both places. In Springfield he championed a measure to expand health care, state legislative ethics reform and an anti-racial-profiling bill that won unanimous support. In the U.S. Senate he worked on anti-nuclear proliferation efforts with Senator Dick Lugar (R-Indiana) and on government accountability measures with Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), a conservative stalwart.

Obama clashed with McCain over ethics reform. In early 2006, the Arizona senator contended Obama was unwilling to work with a bipartisan group independent of Senate leaders. Obama, meanwhile, stresses his role in passing later ethics reform legislation while working more closely with leadership.

The ethics issue illustrates the difference between McCain's and Obama's legislative styles. Both claim bipartisanship, but McCain's idea of it is more muscular. He noisily crosses the aisle and forges coalitions, often without the support of Senate leaders, such as his efforts on campaign finance reform or with the Gang of 14 on judicial nominations. Obama is gentler and pragmatic; he reaches out to Republicans but tends to have the backing of his own party leadership.

Similarly, on the campaign trail, McCain points to issues on which he has broken from his party, while Obama espouses a broad transpartisan new politics without deviating far from orthodox Democratic issues.

Obama's campaign has more of the marks of executive experience than his status as a relatively junior senator suggests. As the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet first noted, Obama's campaign mantra is "no drama," including no evident factions or public infighting among campaign staff. Rather, Obama's team has been stable, while McCain has reorganized his campaign several times in the past year and a half.

Obama has also created a following to which he can appeal for money, volunteers and general support. His campaign promises that as president, he will communicate directly with followers.

A President Obama would face a very different political dynamic in Congress than would a President McCain. While McCain would face divided government, including larger Democratic House and Senate majorities, Obama could claim a popular mandate for his legislative program.

A President Obama would have two advantages over his two most recent Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, each of whom had difficulties working with relatively comfortable Democratic majorities in Congress. In those earlier presidencies, Democratic majorities were large but not cohesive, with a strong bloc of Southern Democratic conservatives. The speaker and the majority leader held less power, while individual committee chairmen had more clout. Today there are fewer moderates, the parties are more cohesive and Democratic congressional leaders have a tighter grip on the majority.

Second, Carter and Clinton ran as outsiders and hired too few seasoned Washington hands at the start of their administrations. Obama has already shown a willingness to work with Washington insiders to advance his legislative agenda. Early in his Senate tenure, Obama hired former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's chief of staff, Pete Rouse. He has also tapped former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta to aid in his transition.

But Obama would face some difficulties. He has bipartisan instincts, but political circumstances point neither to him courting GOP lawmakers nor at Republicans reciprocating. His chief difficulty is raised expectations. An Obama win, combined with strong congressional gains in 2006 and 2008, would embolden Democratic activists to push for an ambitious agenda. But the cost and complexity of health care reform, continuing costs of keeping troops in Afghanistan and even Iraq, and the reality that only a few agenda items can be tackled in the first year may frustrate the base or perhaps cause Obama to push for too much, only to disappoint. Managed correctly, a plan that gets 75 percent of what Obama wants on health care or energy would be a major victory, even if some see it as unambitious.

Finally, the Obama campaign's discipline and grass-roots following are positives, but they have their limits. A disciplined, united, tight-lipped Obama White House would bolster his agenda. But what if Obama loses his stride and hits hard times? Would the loyalty persist? Or, more importantly, would Obama be able to change course and shake up his personnel and his message, as Ronald Reagan did many times and President Bush did not do until it was too late in his presidency?

Ultimately, Obama will succeed if he can manage his majority, keep the expectations of his base in check and resist the temptation to ignore Washington lawmakers by appealing over their heads.

John C. Fortier is a research fellow at AEI.