Sununu and McCain: A Pair of Mavericks
MAVERICKS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
1 May 2008
WASHINGTON — When John McCain traveled to the Middle East in August 2003 after the United States invaded Iraq, John Sununu was at his side.
Two years later, when McCain briefly visited Uzbekistan to condemn its totalitarian regime, Sununu was again right behind him.
And in January 2006, when the Arizonan addressed free-trade issues in New Zealand, Sununu flew along.
Since coming to the Senate, Sununu has tried to model himself after McCain as an independent lawmaker and political maverick. He has sought a mentor who is heralded for voting his mind and is running for president on that message.
“Any politician would want to be seen as an independent voter,” said Andrew Smith, the principal professor of the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire. “What both McCain and Sununu are doing is something that every good politician tries to do.”
The question for the New Hampshire Republican, who is seen by many as one of the sharper minds in the Senate, is whether these traits will help or hurt him as he faces one of the toughest Senate reelection bids in the country in November.
When John met John
Sununu was a House freshman when he first met McCain in 1997. After he was elected to the Senate in 2002, Sununu, then 38, immediately began forming a friendship with the man he calls a “role model” for successful leadership. His motivations were both political and personal.
“I found that I could learn a tremendous amount by watching the way he worked in the Senate,” Sununu said in an interview. “Whether you agree or disagree with him on a particular issue, he’s effective.”
Since then, the two have flown together to more than 15 countries — from Lebanon to Iceland to Kyrgyzstan — and have sometimes sparred on the floor of the Senate chamber. They also have joined hands in the Commerce Committee to write legislation barring Internet taxes and have called for detainee rights for military prisoners and less earmarked spending.
McCain, in an interview, said he took Sununu along on international trips with him early in his Senate career because he saw him as “the future of the Republican Party” and believed he would be helped by exposure to that type of travel.
“I think he’s the smartest person in the United States Senate,” McCain said.
At 43, Sununu is the youngest member of the Senate; McCain is 71, a political veteran and the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting. McCain has speculated on a number of younger GOP lawmakers as potential running mates, and has mentioned Sununu’s name.
“They’re friends in the true sense of the word, not just political friends,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., McCain’s close buddy who traveled with McCain and Sununu to Beirut and Uzbekistan in May 2005. “You have political friends, and you have real friends.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says the friendship between Sununu and McCain is “grounded in their interest in political reform and democracy.”
Graham, 52, joined the Senate the same year as Sununu. Along with Collins, they became the core of McCain’s entourage shortly after.
“There is a camaraderie among the four of us,” said Collins, 55, who went to New Zealand and Antarctica with Sununu and McCain in 2006. “We have a common thirst for knowledge and a desire to learn firsthand about the public policy issues that we’re facing.”
Sununu and McCain also share a dry sense of humor and a taste for casual banter, Collins and Graham say.
“He’s got a New Hampshire sense of humor,” Graham said of Sununu. “From a South Carolina view I find it intriguing, a bit dry and witty. You have to listen close or you’ll get zinged.”
Independence in the Senate
In the Senate, Sununu has voted about 85 percent of the time with the GOP in the current Congress, basically in line with his fellow Republicans’ voting patterns. Democrats are using that statistic against him in the race with former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen.
“His record doesn’t show really any independence whatsoever,” said Alex Reese, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “That shows that he’s just kind of rolling over for George Bush.”
The state’s Democratic Party accuses Sununu of failing to act on the three biggest issues facing New Hampshire: opposing help for middle-class families in the face of the sluggish economy, favoring a continuation of the Iraq war and voting against increased health care spending.
Nevertheless, Sununu has bucked the Republican Party and the Bush administration in his opposition to reauthorizing major parts of the Patriot Act in 2005, his efforts to block energy bills in 2003 and 2005, his call for former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to be fired and his support for giving legal rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
“He has positioned himself as a maverick, meaning he’s pissed off both Republicans and Democrats in Washington,” professor Smith said.
Sununu does have somewhat of a reputation in the Senate for intellectual arrogance. He is persistent like McCain. “He has strong views and doesn’t hesitate to express them,” Republican Senator Judd Gregg said of Sununu.
But Sununu did not back off from remarking about McCain’s temper. “I’ve seen him very frustrated, even angry at times, but it was always over issues of principle, issues he felt passionate about, felt strongly about,” like earmarked spending, he said.
Standing up to the party to stick up for the state is what politicians should do, according to Sununu’s father, a former New Hampshire governor and chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. “Politics is more fun when you do it that way,” John H. Sununu said.
“I think that’s why John likes being a senator so much,” he added. “He’s comfortable with the positions he’s taken.”
Those stances are more or less inspired by the advice McCain has given the first-term senator. When Sununu opposed the White House during the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, McCain warned him that he would be pressured to back down by his Republican colleagues but Sununu should do what he thought was right. “Those are the most difficult moments,” Sununu said.
“It’s quite obvious to me that John Sununu looks up to John McCain as a guy who’s really had a fascinating life and a great record as a U.S. senator,” said Warren Rudman, a former Republican senator from the Granite State who served with McCain and considers both senators friends of his. “And John McCain looks at John Sununu as a real up-and-coming guy with potential for the future.”
That may be why McCain hand-picked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer just a few months after Sununu entered the Senate in 2003 as a travel companion to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and other Asian countries. After that trip, the two flew on four other world tours from 2004 to 2006 to promote democratic ideals.
If the Arizonan is elected president this November, Sununu predicts, he will remain the same kind of person in the White House.
For Sununu’s own ambitions, he is young enough to postpone running for higher office for several years. As for a Cabinet position in a McCain presidency, Sununu said, “Look, if the president of the United States calls you and asks you to do something that he or she thinks is important to the country, you at least listen.”
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