Obama, McCain Forged Fleeting Alliance

And McCain's camp has relentlessly questioned what Obama, 46, has done that has prepared him for the presidency.

"He really doesn't have any accomplishments. It's not a slight against Obama; he's only been in the Senate for a few years, and most of that time he was running for president," Mark Salter, McCain's former chief of staff and now senior campaign adviser, said in an interview.

In January 2006, McCain and Obama looked like natural allies. Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist whose actions had been exposed largely by the work of a committee headed by McCain, had recently pleaded guilty to bribing members of Congress.

Senate Republicans turned to McCain, whose credentials on the topic were solidified after his campaign finance bill became law in 2002, to help craft their ethics legislation. Democratic leaders turned to the freshest face they could find, making Obama their point man in a chamber he had served in for 12 months.

Obama had worked to cultivate a reformist image, leading an overhaul of ethics rules in the Illinois state Senate. His well-received speech at the 2004 Democratic convention made him a big draw on the campaign trail, and he hopscotched around the nation on nearly two dozen flights on corporate jets campaigning for fellow Democrats, paying only the cost of a first-class ticket for each trip. Recognizing the downside of allowing corporations to do favors that could boost his political standing, he unilaterally ended the practice in late 2005 -- about the same time McCain, another frequent flier on corporate jets, imposed a similar ban before new Senate rules barred the practice.

When Obama approached McCain to talk about working together, the veteran recalled his first days in the House in 1983, when Rep. Morris Udall (D-Ariz.) took McCain under his wing, according to Salter. "He never forgot that."

McCain personally invited Obama to attend a February 2006 bipartisan meeting of senators. Democrats say the meeting went well and there were no signs of animosity, but some Republicans contend that Obama delivered what amounted to a high-handed speech about the culture of corruption without wanting to delve into legislative detail.

Obama was "talking more than was justified," said Lott, who was chairman of the Rules and Administration Committee at the time. "Maybe there was a little bit of pettiness on the other side."

Obama would later recall later that McCain thanked him "several times" for attending and pledged to work with the freshman.

The Arizonan, however, lost faith in Obama the next day.

Obama dashed off a letter -- promptly released to the media -- that suggested McCain, who was already considering a presidential run, had "expressed an interest" in creating a task force to study the issue. But, Obama wrote, "the more effective and more timely" route was to move a bill quickly through Senate committees.

McCain struck back at what he saw as the newcomer questioning his bona fides on reform issues. He derided Obama as a stalking horse for Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), the party leader who had vowed to make GOP corruption issues the central plank of the 2006 midterm elections.