Learning to Love Lindsey

In a great old episode of The West Wing, the president's chief of staff, Leo McGarry, is schmoozing up a politician the White House wants to win over. After their chat, McGarry puts the ultimate power move on the pol: he casually ushers the dazzled man into the Oval Office, where the president is waiting to greet him like a dear friend.

The allure of the Oval Office drop-in isn't lost on Rahm Emanuel, the real-life White House chief of staff. Not long after Barack Obama took office, Emanuel staged a McGarry maneuver of his own. Hoping to make good on his campaign promise of a kinder Washington, Obama was looking for influential Republicans he could team up with. There weren't many obvious choices in the House. But there was one in the Senate: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Emanuel invited Graham to the White House for a one-on-one about national-security issues (the senator is a former military prosecutor who sits on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees). After their chat, Rahm ushered Graham into the Oval Office, where Obama was waiting to greet him like a dear friend.

Obama and Graham made small talk and joked about the president's still-bare desk. Graham, a bachelor who lives on Coke Zero and Burger King, recalls telling Obama, "I can help you with detainee policy and world stuff, but don't call me for decorating advice."

Since then, Emanuel and Obama have invited Graham back several times. To the dismay (and sometimes outright anger) of his fellow Republicans, Graham has advised the president on how to handle touchy political issues, including closing Guantánamo Bay and bringing terror suspects to justice. Joe Biden invited him over for steaks at the vice president's residence, where he asked Graham for help winning Republican support for the surge in Afghanistan. "We're really going to need you, because we're going to lose a lot of [Democratic votes]," Biden told him, according to Graham's recollection of the meeting. Emanuel calls Graham "a worthy opponent and a valuable ally."

The senator enjoys the attention, but he is not naive—he was one of the Republican revolutionaries who stole Congress from the Democrats in 1994, and he helped manage the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. And he is not dazzled by Obama's charm. Neither does he have much interest in being the president's best friend. During the 2008 campaign Graham was John McCain's traveling companion, confidant, and occasional alter ego. He has excoriated Obama as an extreme liberal and accused him of "folding like a cheap suit" on immigration policy back in their Senate days together. Graham is pro–tax cut, pro-gun, pro-drilling, and anti-abortion. He opposes Obama's health-care plan (and hasn't offered to help on the issue). He was against the stimulus package and the jobs bill.

But he is also impatient with his own party leaders' determination to thwart Obama at every turn instead of working with him to see that Republicans get some of what they want. A seasoned haggler who takes pride in the give-and-take of dealmaking, Graham sees no sense in the all-or-nothing ethos that now defines politics in Washington. "I'm trying to keep the tradition alive that you can fight for your causes and effectively engage with your colleagues," Graham says. "I didn't come here to talk about what I won't do."

Graham was the only Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of confirming Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's first Supreme Court nominee. He had grilled the judge about her temperament and disagreed sharply with many of her rulings, but in the end he said he couldn't deny that she was qualified for the job. Most Republicans claim global warming is not an urgent threat. Hedging, Graham says he's not sure, but thinks either way it's common sense that pollution is a problem. He's spent months working with Democrat John Kerry to find a way to reduce carbon emissions that both parties can live with. On immigration, Graham talks tough about securing the border to keep illegals out, but supports limited amnesty for those already here. It would be impossible, he says, to round up and deport 12 million people.