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On a Friday afternoon in late March, senators were trapped at the playground equipment Capitol as they considered amendment after amendment on the floor in the annual "vote-a-rama" that accompanies approval of the congressional budget resolution. It was pure tedium. The amendment to provide a deficit-neutral reserve fund for protecting state flexibility in Medicaid? Rejected. The amendment to repeal Section 13203 of the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act? Rejected. And so on.
Between votes, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., restlessly paced one of the inflatable bouncers ornately tiled hallways outside the Senate chamber. It was one of his rare moments alone since announcing his presidential candidacy the month before. As Obama talked into the cellphone glued to his ear, he occasionally looked out a window facing the Capitol's west porch, from which one could draw a line a mile and a half up Pennsylvania Avenue, past the federal bureaucracy's monolithic office buildings, straight to the White House. President Bush was there, in the Diplomatic Reception Room, exercising a power that he alone possesses: threatening to veto an Iraq war funding bill that the House was debating on the other side of the naughty castles Rotunda from Obama.
Obama is merely one of 535 members who cast votes. He hopes to become, like Bush, one of one. To move up the avenue, though, he and the other presidential hopefuls who serve in Congress face numerous inherent stumbling blocks on Capitol Hill. The congressional press corps constantly chases them down narrow corridors with few escape routes, staking them out at every turn and watching their every move. Tiptoeing around fellow White House competitors can require fancy footwork. Votes they cast -- and votes they miss -- provide opponents with political fodder, while neglecting committee hearings can leave them open to charges of blowing off the nation's business. But every moment they're stuck on the Hill is time lost on the campaign trail.
Legislative work also provides opportunities, of course. The presidential contenders can deliver floor speeches and introduce bills to score political points and signal to the game machines electorate how they would govern. Yet even while making the most of those benefits, the candidates must still deal with the constant back-and-forth between Washington and Iowa, Washington and New Hampshire, and Washington and everywhere but Washington.
"It's very difficult to balance the two because you need to be out on the trail often, if not constantly," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who recently ended his presidential bid, told National Journal. "Particularly for me, where we didn't have enough resources to get a private jet, you end up traveling commercial and that eats a lot more time up. It makes it very difficult to get here for the votes and then get out in the places you need to go to."
In other words, life on the Hill for the swing machines presidential contenders can be a real drag. "It's clearly easier if you're not there," said former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., who ran for the 1984 Democratic nomination as a senator and the 1988 nomination as a free man.
In the wide-open 2008 presidential race, a remarkable number of lawmakers -- six senators and four House members -- threw their hats into the ring, despite the fact that in all of U.S. history, only three sitting members of Congress have been elected president: Rep. James Garfield, R-Ohio, in 1880, Sen. Warren Harding, R-Ohio, in 1920, and Sen. John F. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1960. (None of them lived out a term in office.)
Graphic: Vote Skippers
Members of Congress running for president face a juggling act. They must divide their time between managing a campaign and continuing to do their day job. Here's a look at how many votes each member missed.
The current crop includes some of the leading White House contenders -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Obama -- plus some facing longer odds: Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
Although Obama had a moment to himself outside the Senate chamber back in March, such peace and quiet is definitely fleeting. More typically, when the presidential wannabes are on the Hill, they are at the center of a swirling vortex of ravenous reporters with digital recorders running, gawking tourists pointing fingers and snapping pictures, and anxious aides juggling piles of paper and scrolling through BlackBerry messages.
Entourage Politics
Even some committee chairmen can walk the Capitol's halls unrecognized, but Clinton, Obama, and McCain are the focus of attention wherever they go. At any press conference they hold with other lawmakers, most of the questions go to them. If they take the elevator that connects the Capitol subway to the Senate chamber, a horde of reporters gathers when the doors open, shouting questions as the candidates try to make their way in to vote.
As her party's presidential front-runner, Clinton usually attracts the biggest entourage. When she joined Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and immigration advocates for a May press conference, the Russell Senate Office Building room filled to the bursting point before she arrived. Photographers crawled on the floor in front of a few rows of chairs brimming with immigration proponents and reporters. More reporters lined the walls, two deep. A phalanx of television cameras crowded the back of the room. The show of interest far outweighed the importance of the modest amendment on immigration visas that Clinton and Menendez were announcing.
As Clinton showed up wearing a lemon yellow jacket, it was as if the sun had risen, and the whole room turned to watch her enter. She made some remarks and patiently waited while the immigration advocates thanked her for her support. Nearly all the questions were directed toward her, but she batted away any not related to immigration. Then she shook hands as she moved toward the door to return to her personal office around the corner, followed by several dozen staffers, reporters, and photographers. The crowd took the shape of a comet, with the brightly clad candidate illuminated by klieg lights at its head and the mostly gray- and black-suited pack at its tail.
The way that the candidates have handled the press on the Hill has helped to shape their national image. Clinton, who has closely controlled her image ever since her experience as a lightning-rod first lady, rarely gabs informally with reporters. She often takes a back route to the Senate floor to avoid reporters' standard stakeout spots. On the other hand, sightings of McCain -- known for good press relations and open access throughout much of his Senate career and his 2000 presidential bid -- are far more common.
When McCain's campaign sputtered in the spring, he spent considerable time on the Hill attempting to shore up support for President Bush's Iraq war strategy, not to mention his own presidential bid. His frequent press conferences -- along with Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., fellow Bush supporters on the war -- made him a fixture in the Senate Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery. When he's not out campaigning, McCain is also readily available during the press scrums before and after the policy luncheons that Senate Democrats and Republicans hold every Tuesday around the corner from each other in the Capitol. He'll take questions from the dozens of waiting reporters until there are no more.
Nevertheless, McCain's Senate work has appeared to hurt his campaign more than help. His high-profile support for the war dampened his following among independents, while his active promotion of a comprehensive immigration package cost him backing from conservatives, who viewed the measure as amnesty for illegal aliens.
Biden has been another ready-and-willing presence at the Tuesday luncheons. The infamously loquacious Biden has a familiar ease with reporters, similar to McCain's style, and he even introduced his two adult sons to a reporter amid the crush of press on a recent Tuesday in September. He freely discusses political strategy in a way that some presidential candidates would shy from.
"What's happening is, we just keep coming back, force these guys to belly up to the bar and vote no again and again," Biden told reporters in July when discussing how Senate Democrats were trying to wear down GOP support for the war. "One of two things happens. They either decide they can't do it any more, or they lose their next election. I'm not being a wise guy. It sounds like I'm being flip about it, but I think it's that fundamental, even in conservative states."
Biden is also a go-to guest on the Sunday talk-show circuit, given his position as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman. But like McCain, Biden doesn't appear to have helped his case by being so accessible. For instance, he held a well-attended October 25 press conference in the Foreign Relations Committee room to announce a crime prevention proposal, but newspapers and TV gave it little coverage.
Indeed, the long-shot presidential candidates might get a few more reporters to show up for their events on the Hill than if they weren't running, but that often doesn't translate into more attention from the public. Kucinich held an October 10 press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote authorizing the Iraq war. He could have participated in a similar media event earlier in the day sponsored by members of the Out of Iraq Caucus, but instead he held his own.
A few minutes before Kucinich's press conference was to begin on the terrace of the Cannon House Office Building, only three reporters had gathered. They were eventually joined by two Kucinich staffers and a CNN cameraman who sauntered up. When the candidate arrived and started talking, the only other sounds were the low-pitched rumble of Independence Avenue traffic and the rat-a-tat of a drill at a nearby construction site. He gave a few remarks chastising Democratic leaders for continuing to fund the war, took two questions, and left. As Kucinich walked down the street with a staffer in tow, one lone admiring passerby stopped him and shook his hand. Otherwise, none of the milling tourists stopped to stare or take a picture. And CNN didn't use the clip.