Friday, October 26, 2007

OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM

They are the '60s bookends of the 2008 campaign, one a college protester during the Vietnam War, the other a decorated naval officer who flew combat missions over Hanoi. Today, their biographies intersect in a powerful evocation of a decade that has long shaped the politics of the country.

It is an accident of history that Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday will fall on the 40th anniversary of the day John McCain was shot down over Vietnam. Today, they campaign for the White House as respectful rivals, but across a vast cultural chasm that still divides the country.

It is ironic perhaps that their shared anniversaries come at the end of a week in which McCain has tweaked Clinton over one of the great symbols of that decade, the Woodstock rock festival in Upstate New York, which McCain described in Sunday's debate as a "cultural and pharmaceutical event" that he missed because he "was tied up." Clinton's support for $1 million in taxpayer dollars to help fund a Woodstock memorial is the subject of McCain's new campaign ad.

Baby boomer Clinton marked her big birthday with a big celebration, a fundraising bash last night featuring rocker Elvis Costello that included friends and political contributors and was hosted by her husband.

McCain, more than a decade older and not sharing the sensibilities of the boomer generation, will not celebrate as much as commemorate the anniversary of his capture. He plans to campaign today in Iowa with Bud Day, with whom he shared a prison cell at the "Hanoi Hilton."

McCain's life was forever shaped by Oct. 26, 1967, and the subsequent six years he spent as a prisoner of war. He still carries the physical scars from his torture and exudes the indomitable spirit that kept him alive. Clinton's life, too, was changed by those years. She was 20 at the time and in midstream of a political evolution that would take her from Goldwater Girl to liberal activist to the most prominent woman in the Democratic Party.

When McCain was finally released from prison in the spring of 1973, he met President Nixon at a White House reception for the POWs, resulting in a famous photo of their handshake. By the end of that year, Clinton, then a young law school graduate, had been recruited to join the House Judiciary Committee staff for its Watergate impeachment investigation.

To many Republicans, Clinton and her husband remain symbols of all that was wrong with the '60s. But McCain has never engaged in such criticism. Today he says of Hillary Clinton, "I like her. I respect her." He also says she is a liberal and he a proud conservative.

At one time, they even came close to seeing eye-to-eye on Iraq, this being when both were critics of the administration's management of the conflict and of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Today they are as divided over Iraq as they once were over Vietnam, only now it comes in the context of a high-stakes presidential campaign.

What kind of campaign would it be if they were rivals in the general election? I asked McCain that the other day. "I hope it would sound like a respectable debate based on philosophical differences, which are significant," he said. "For example, she voted to cut off funding to the troops in Iraq after it was clear we were going to stay. I think that that's something that ought to be debated. "

Since the beginning of 2008, when Clinton and McCain were viewed as likely rivals, McCain's star has since faded as Clinton's has burned brighter. They may never share that presidential campaign platform, but they remain two veterans of the cultural and political clashes of the '60s now symbols in their own right seeking to lead a still-divided nation.

-- Dan Balz

Iowa Democrats are poised to move their vote to Jan. 3, placing the contest on the same day Republicans have already chosen and one of the earliest presidential caucus days in history.

The chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, Scott Brennan, will recommend the date to top party officials on a conference call Sunday and it is expected to be approved.

By setting this date, Iowa is ensuring its influence will remain in the presidential nomination process; at least for now it will have the earliest vote of any state, although New Hampshire officials are considering a primary in December.

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

Even in a party generally opposed to abortion rights, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is uniquely outspoken in his concern about the issue, having called abortion a "holocaust" and likened the antiabortion movement to the fight against slavery.

But after an hour-long meeting in his Senate office with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Brownback seemed on the verge of backing the only candidate in the Republican race who supports abortion rights. Brownback, who dropped out of the Republican race last week after struggling to raise money or gain in polls, is being courted by several of the remaining candidates who are eager to get the backing of one of the party's most committed social conservatives.

Giuliani came to Washington for this meeting, and while Brownback didn't endorse the ex-mayor, he praised Giuliani as an "excellent leader" and said he was "much more comfortable" with Giuliani's views on abortion and gay rights after the meeting. Asked by reporters at a brief news conference after the meeting if he could support a "pro-choice" nominee, Brownback said "I don't know whether he describes himself . . . as a pro-choice candidate" and then said he would let Giuliani explain his own views. Giuliani reiterated that he does not like abortion and would like to live in a country without abortions, but that he would not push to ban it.

-- Perry Bacon Jr.