Sunday, February 07, 1999
Opposing leaders keep talking, keep peace
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., remembered the way the two leaders, seated side by side, leaned in close to each other during the bipartisan caucus in the old Senate chamber last month. They were “whispering and giggling,” Mr. Gorton said, like the fastest of friends.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., recalled the many occasions over the last few weeks that a meeting with one of the leaders was interrupted by an impromptu telephone call to or from the other. “Both senators like each other,” Mr. Leahy said, citing that as one reason that “the Senate didn't spin out of control.”
The circumstances did not always promote it. The odds were often against it. But amid the partisan fires of the impeachment and trial of President Clinton, the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, and the minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, managed to forge a better relationship than they had ever had before.
In interviews this week, fellow senators, aides and and the two leaders themselves said that it was an assiduous effort, an attempt to fashion an amulet against a protracted, rancorous proceeding.
Although it failed on numerous occasions, as deals collapsed and votes split along strictly partisan lines, senators said the amity achieved by Mr. Lott and Mr. Daschle was perhaps the main reason the trial could end within the next week. They said that the leaders' example also boded well for the legislative session to come, providing a beacon of bipartisan harmony in a Congress starved for it in recent years.
“Daschle and Lott speak more in one day than (the House's Richard) Gephardt and (Newt) Gingrich spoke in one year,” said Sen. John Breaux, D-La.
Senators from both parties said that the leaders had benefited from being thrown together, for days on end, with a strong motivation to talk to each other and try to find common ground.
“It's not just Trent and Tom,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “Oddly enough, though we've had a lot of partisan votes, it's been a bonding experience.”
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Opposing leaders keep talking, keep peace
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