Barack Obama, to hear his advisers tell it, has finally found The One he has been looking for: John McCain."We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up," a White House official said. West Wing aides say they now talk with McCain roughly every other day.
McCain, to hear fellow Republicans tell it, has finally found The Two he has needed to make such conversations worth the bother: Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who can actually get things done in the Senate, and Denis McDonough, a White House chief of staff who actually cares what senators say and think and do.
| Pssst, John: he only pretends to care... |
A year ago, they weren't even friends. They fought over matters big, like legislation, and small, like whether Long Island should be part of the United States. After McCain said Long Island was "regrettably" a part of our nation, Schumer demanded an apology. "I'm sorry there's at least one of my colleagues that can't take a joke," McCain said on the Senate floor.
The two first got together late last year, on a successful effort to defuse a previous threat of the nuclear option with a proposal for filibuster reform. "McCain and I sort of bonded over stale Danish," Schumer said. Still, they didn't jell.
Sen. Lindsey Graham urged Schumer to make sure McCain joined the Gang of Eight working on immigration reform.
| Because if anyone knows a squish it's Lindsey... |
They now talk on the phone five or six times each day. "I run out of juice," McCain said.