There are some fascinating passages in John McCain's speech in Columbus, Ohio this morning about what he hopes to accomplish by the end of his first term as president. Some of the most remarkable ones, however, are about how far he'll go in using the powers of the presidency - and what lines he won't cross.
Basically, it's one more way McCain is putting distance between himself and President Bush.
Take the issue of signing statements. One of the greatest sources of tension between Bush and Congress has been the way he has used his official written statements, when signing legislation into law, to suggest he would treat some provisions as advice rather than requirements because they intruded on the powers of the presidency.
According to Christopher S. Kelley, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, Bush has used these statements 159 times and has challenged 1,167 provisions of new laws. And one of the most famous examples was the signing statement Bush issued after signing McCain's ban on torture into law in 2005.
So maybe it's not surprising that McCain would take special exception to the way Bush has used signing statements. Here's what he said:
"I will exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation's best interests, but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like."
McCain also said his administration "will set a new standard for transparency and accountability" - including weekly press conferences (has he actually met the White House press corps yet?), regular briefings for the public on the progress of his policies, and a promise that "when we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them."
And for members of Congress who got used to arms-length treatment from the Bush administration, there was this surprising pledge:
"I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons."
Really? McCain won't have had enough heckling on the campaign trail?
A "question time" in the U.S. Congress would be interesting to see - if it actually lasts for more than the first two weeks of a McCain presidency. (We'll leave the temper jokes to others.)
The bottom line, however, is that McCain is promising a better relationship with Congress than Bush had, and less trumpeting of presidential power for its own sake. It may speak to his own frame of reference, as a member of Congress for a quarter century - but it's also a nice way to compete with Barack Obama, who has staked much of his own candidacy on promises of openness and transparency.
In reality, McCain has had a mixed record on executive power in his 21 years in the Senate. He has been willing to challenge the Bush administration and use the power of congressional oversight, but at other times he has been a vocal advocate of the authority of the commander in chief, especially in the 2002 debate leading to the authorization of the Iraq war.
Here's my take from last year on McCain's record on executive power.
Obama doesn't have as much of a record to look at, so the only guide we really have to his views of executive power is what he says about them, as I explained last year in this CQ Weekly piece. But if both mean what they say about building a better relationship between the president and Congress, a lot of lawmakers - and outsiders who worry about checks and balances in government - will breathe easier.
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