Candidates put in some face time in the Senate

WASHINGTON — Taking a break from a frenetic campaign, all three presidential candidates returned to the Senate on Thursday for a daylong series of votes on the budget blueprint, using a rare day inside the Capitol to touch base with powerful colleagues and engage in some political gamesmanship.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., circulated on the Senate floor accompanied by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an early and stalwart supporter.

Democratic rivals Sens. Barack Obama, of Illinois, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York, each used the opportunity to pull aside senators from Michigan and Florida for hushed conversations on the floor as Democrats deliberate on how to handle primaries in those states that broke party rules and disqualified their convention delegations.

During the Senate budget debate, Republicans maneuvered to embarrass Obama with an amendment that purported to fund every proposal he has made on the campaign trail at a price the GOP calculated at $1.4 trillion over five years.

Moments before the vote on the GOP measure, Obama, accompanied by a posse of supporters, strutted out through the swinging doors of the Democratic cloakroom to call out the sponsor, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.

"Hey, Allard, you working this hard?" Obama shouted out across the chamber. The amendment failed 97-0 and even Allard voted against it.

Obama and Clinton mostly kept apart. But they did briefly take seats next to each other for a conversation lasting three or four minutes, with Obama leaning in toward her and Clinton at times gesturing animatedly with her hands. Obama parted from her with a pat on the back.

Minutes later, Obama's campaign blasted Clinton in an e-mail, charging her with secrecy for failing to disclose pork-barrel spending requests she has made in the Senate.

Obama, who had already released his 2007 requests, released a complete list Thursday of funding requests since he entered the Senate.

Among those requests was $1 million in federal funding in 2006 for a new pavilion at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where his wife, Michelle Obama, was a vice president at the time. The request was not funded, according to the Obama campaign.