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Still, it's intriguing how many opportunities they are finding to be noticed together. Their co-hosting gig at the movie premiere came at the end of a day they had begun together at a news conference. Last week found McCain and Clinton together again as part of a congressional delegation surveying melting glaciers in Alaska. And there was that brow-raising joint appearance from Baghdad on Meet the Press last winter, in which each declared that the other would make a good President.
So what's behind all the coziness? One thing it suggests is that the next presidential campaign may not look much like the past one. In 2004, the strategy on both sides was to exploit the polarization of the electorate, leaving swing voters an afterthought in both sides' campaign plans. Democrats and Republicans stressed the most divisive issues, dug into their bases and mobilized their most committed partisans.
McCain has rejected that kind of politics throughout his career. Although unwaveringly hawkish on an unpopular war and firmly on the right about social matters like abortion, he also has a penchant for taking on issues like campaign-finance reform that discomfort the faithful in both parties and often just his own. Whereas many Republicans refuse to acknowledge that global warming even exists, it has become something of an obsession with him. The immigration-reform bill he introduced last month would beef up border security but give undocumented aliens a path to legalization, which many on the right oppose. Says McCain's chief political strategist John Weaver: "You can appeal to the base in a way and a manner that excites them but also in a way that does not put off the broad middle of the country. If he runs, that will be our thesis."
If the question for McCain is whether he can take the Republican Party toward the center, the one for Clinton is whether she can carve out a space for herself there. While only 21% of Americans consider themselves liberal, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last December, 58% think she is one. Among swing voters, the gap between the percentage of self-described liberals and people who perceive Clinton as one was 43 points. Clinton's views have always been more nuanced than either her enemies or her fans have been willing to admit, and she has been working hard to mute her image as a hard-line, left-leaning ideologue. She talks about finding consensus on hot-button issues like abortion, and says it is "high time for a cease-fire" between the liberal and conservative wings of her party. When the author of 1994's politically disastrous plan to guarantee universal medical coverage mentions health care these days, it is to boast of the work she is doing with Newt Gingrich, of all people, to lower costs and encourage healthier lifestyles. The loyalty that Clinton enjoys with the Democratic base gives her options that no other contender for the nomination could have. "She has the rare flexibility to reach out to the center even before she gets the nomination," says Marshall Wittman, McCain's former communications director and now a senior fellow at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, where Clinton is leading a project to develop the party's message for next year's congressional elections.