McCain’s death won’t be filled soon

Senate void left by McCain’s death won’t be filled soon — if ever

McCain’s passing marks the end of an era.

By JOHN BRESNAHAN

Can John McCain be replaced?

And does anyone really want that to happen?

As senators went to the floor to pay tribute to the late Arizona Republican this week, there was an overwhelming sense that the Senate had lost a singular figure, the rare lawmaker able to bridge the gulf between the parties and make bipartisan deals.

Especially for Democrats, who rejoiced over McCain’s stunning vote in July 2017 to block Obamacare repeal, handing President Donald Trump and the GOP a huge defeat, McCain was a godsend. He stood up to Trump in a way that no other Republican could, and they adored him for it.

“His ability to see beyond party labels was one of the qualities that so many of us loved about him,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “We are stronger together than we are divided, and John McCain knew that.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s closest friend in the Senate, gave an emotional, tear-filled speech on the floor Tuesday, recalling jokes and stories of his longtime colleague.

For Graham, McCain’s most poignant moment may have come in November 2008, after McCain lost the presidential race to then-Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

“John taught us how to lose,” Graham said. “John said that night, ‘President Obama is now my president.’ So he healed the nation at a time he was hurt.”

Yet the irony of this week of McCain tributes — the toxic political atmosphere in which they are taking place, even the reason the Senate was in session this month to begin with — isn’t lost on any of his colleagues.

“It’s changed,” added Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) of the Senate and American politics generally. Shelby was elected as a Democrat in 1986, the same year McCain moved to the upper chamber from the House. “When I came here, you had [Robert] Byrd, you had [Ted] Stevens, you had [Bob] Dole, you had [Dan] Inouye, among other people. Mark Hatfield. [Ted] Kennedy. … It was real different then. It was partisan at times, but not always.”

“You have a changing of the guard every so often,” Shelby added.

Trump — a man for whom McCain had little respect, an enmity returned by Trump many times over — is in the White House, and the country and Republican Party won’t ever be the same. The Senate is led by sharply partisan former campaign committee chairmen in Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Committee chairmen no longer have the power they once had, and partisan media on each side mercilessly pound any senator who even dares thinks of crossing the aisle to vote with the opposition. McConnell, at the urging of Trump and many Senate Republicans, kept the chamber in session during August because Democrats have filibustered many of Trump’s nominees, dragging out the process of staffing up the administration deep into the 115th Congress.

And with Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh getting a hearing on his Supreme Court nomination next week, the specter of Merrick Garland is never far from Democrats’ minds. McCain’s successor, a loyal Republican selected by Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, will almost certainly vote on the Senate floor to approve that nomination as early as next month.

In fact, the week of celebrations of McCain’s life and bipartisan spirit are like a bittersweet daydream, a flashback to the halcyon days of the Senate’s past during a feverishly hot August stretch in Washington. Congress will come back into session after Labor Day and everything will go back to the new normal — more Trump attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, a possible government shutdown this fall. And the November midterm elections will creep ever closer, with the possibility of a Democratic takeover of the House and Trump’s impeachment.

Whether someone like McCain could thrive in the Senate now is a matter of debate. It would be much harder for such a politician to win a seat in the first place, even with an impressive military record or history of public service. When he or she got here, partisan pressure on them to fall in line would be intense. There are few senators or House members who can go their own way these days and survive politically, as evidenced by the retirement of Trump critics like Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).

On the Democratic side, the party has grown more liberal since Trump came into office, and “centrist” has become a dirty word among progressives.

“With 24-7 [media] coverage, anything you say, tweet or do will be blown out of proportion and used against you,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). “This is one of the things John McCain did so well — keeping the job was never more important than doing the right thing.”

Warner also worries that Trump — “his outrageousness,” especially — is the new model for politicians, rather than McCain, especially for anyone seeking the national spotlight.

“In Trump, you have the antithesis of everything that John McCain stood for, in terms of honor, loyalty, American leadership, public service, yet you’ve got to acknowledge that [Trump’s] outrageousness maybe helped him get to there,” Warner said. “You do have those mini, wannabe Trumps popping up around the country.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who came to the Senate in 1976, spoke fondly of iconic past figures, such as Byrd. “They were willing to work with you if you were sincere and dedicated,” said Hatch, who was known for working closely with Kennedy despite their dramatic differences in personality and politics.

But Hatch, who was elected in the wake of the Watergate scandal, also noted that when he got to the Senate, Democrats had huge majorities and basically tolerated Republicans, which made it a lot easier for the majority party to go through the motions of bipartisanship.

“It functioned because everything was controlled by Democrats,” Hatch quipped. “They discussed things with Republicans, but they just did that keep things somewhat cordial. They controlled everything.”

According to Hatch, “things aren’t as bad as you make them out to be. Although there is room for improvement, that’s for sure.”

McConnell, for his part, rejected the notion that the senators of the past are better than the current crop of senators, no matter what pundits and the press say.

“Our country will always produce the great men and women that it needs when it needs them,” McConnell said in an interview. “There are great men and women in the Senate now. I serve with them every day.”

McCain’s temperament is another issue that can’t be overlooked, and Democrats used it against him in the 2008 presidential race. McCain had a legendary temper, and he held grudges for a long time. McCain and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) didn’t speak for years following a blowup in the early 1990s, and the lords of the Senate Appropriations Committee such as Byrd, Inouye and Stevens loathed him.

Former Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), a future chairman of the Appropriations Committee, told the Boston Globe that “the thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." Cochran, however, later endorsed McCain.

But some Senate Republican aides wonder whether some of this bad blood still exists, as there is surprising resistance from some inside the party to renaming the Russell Senate Office Building after McCain, or another high-profile tribute.

“I don’t know if they don’t want to upset Trump or what, but some members aren’t thrilled with the idea,” said a senior Senate GOP aide. “We’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, with McCain’s funeral this weekend — preceded by his body lying in state both in Arizona and the Capitol — the McCain memorial tour will continue to roll.

“It will be a long time before anybody like John McCain comes along again,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). “While John McCain was often right, and occasionally wrong, he was never in doubt.”