Beyond the Dome

Both John McCain and Barack Obama now have official congressional liaisons to try to keep the campaigns and their party colleagues in Congress on the same page. Funny, though — you wouldn’t know it from watching the candidates and the congressional leaders over the last two days.

This morning, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio announced that he’ll take 10 House Republicans (all of them freshmen) on an “American Energy Tour” next week. It will take them to, among other places, a part of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), where House Republicans would like to drill for oil.

They’ll have more of the public on their side than they did before, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, since $4-a-gallon gas is making people more receptive to expanding the search for energy resources. One person they won’t have on their side, however, is McCain. He has always opposed drilling in ANWR, and said last month that “When America set aside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we called it a ‘refuge’ for a reason.”

Oops.

And yesterday, Obama returned to the Senate to vote for the compromise legislation rewriting the nation’s electronic surveillance law. He was one of 21 Democrats who voted for it — mostly centrists like Evan Bayh of Indiana, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and non-running-mate Jim Webb of Virginia.

So who were some of the 27 Democrats who voted against it? Let’s see: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Democratic Conference Secretary Patty Murray of Washington. In other words, pretty much the entire Democratic leadership.

Oops.

Both candidates have tried to paper over their differences with the Hill on these issues. McCain’s new-found support for offshore energy exploration has provided congressional Republicans with one energy proposal they can enthusiastically embrace, and both Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have done so (McConnell gave a floor speech on the subject this morning).

And Obama, as promised, did vote for an amendment yesterday that would have knocked out the section of the surveillance legislation that would give immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The amendment failed miserably, as expected — it got only 32 votes. But at least the attempt put Obama, temporarily, in the company of the Senate Democratic leaders.

Still, both episodes prove that, as much as the presidential candidates and their congressional surrogates may sound like they’re parroting the same talking points, there will always be issues where they can’t or won’t get in sync. And there is only so much the campaigns’ ambassadors to Congress can do about it.