Obama's record tough to assess
When he came to the Senate, his party was in the minority. Then he started his campaign.
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama says that if he were president, he'd take politically courageous stands while forging the consensus needed to enact universal health care, immigration revisions, global-warming legislation, and a withdrawal from Iraq.
His three-year record in the Senate, however, offers little evidence that he can do what he's promising. His party was in the minority for his first two years, and in the third he began campaigning for president and missed lots of time on Capitol Hill. He was absent from or only partly involved in some key bipartisan efforts to head off stalemates on judicial nominations, immigration, and Iraq war policy.
"He is asking us to believe he can do something he has yet to do," said Michael Fauntroy, assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University.
Being one of 100 senators, especially a junior one, is very different from being president, of course, and Senate records - impressive or mediocre - haven't always been good indicators of a candidate's fitness or readiness for the White House.
Obama, 46, an Illinois Democrat, was a leader on a significant bipartisan ethics bill that passed. He coauthored successful government-transparency legislation with one of his most conservative colleagues, Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.).
However, he's advocated ambitious health-care expansion and largely staked out Senate positions with or to the left of his party's leaders. National Journal, a respected research publication, rated him the most liberal-voting senator of 2007. Hillary Rodham Clinton ranked 16th. The public policy magazine found Obama's votes the 10th most liberal in 2006 and the 16th most liberal in 2005.
Obama's aides take issue with the rankings because they are based on selective votes, and because the standards for what is considered liberal or conservative are subjective.
Colleagues from both parties acknowledge his magnetism and respectful style, and consider him a serious student of public policy. "I appreciated his patience," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who is neutral in the Democratic presidential contest, with his state set to vote May 20. "By his own admission, he hadn't been in the Senate a long time, so he was willing to learn."
Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), who has endorsed Obama, said the Illinois senator stood out in Democrats' closed-door caucus lunches. "When he gets up and speaks, everybody tends to listen."
But other senators, especially rivals Clinton and Republican John McCain, have been irked by what at times they considered Obama's holier-than-thou posturing. Some others said they hadn't seen much evidence of Obama's desire or ability to cut deals, bring together disparate forces, or engage on legislation that didn't fit into the political narrative he wants to shape for himself.
"Aside from working with him on the ethics bill, I really had very few dealings with him," said Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine). She supports McCain but enjoys rare status as a Republican moderate, which makes her a go-to person for Democrats.
"In some ways, that's telling, because usually people who consider themselves to be working across party lines, the people who are inclusive, know the moderate Republicans well, and he did not," she said.
Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), who has endorsed Obama in his state's primary April 22, said that one difficulty of being newly elected was that "you end up spending much of your time with people in your own party. That's how the Senate works."
Sen. Robert Bennett (R., Utah), a member of his party's leadership team, won't be voting for Obama. "It's very hard to measure any senator this soon, particularly someone whose first two years were in the minority and whose next year has been spent running for president," he said.