As Sen. John McCain tries to shore up support within the Republican Party, one of the Arizona Republican’s closest allies is working to keep Senate Democrats from putting him in political jams as he remains away on the campaign trail.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has long been McCain’s closest ally on Capitol Hill, having worked side by side with him on issues that have provoked a firestorm from the right — such as immigration, detainee policy and judicial nominations — as well as on policies that have been excoriated by the left, like the Iraq war.

In an interview with The Hill, Graham said he sees his role as an advocate for McCain’s positions, a go-between for his GOP colleagues and the campaign, and “someone who [McCain] can count on to watch his back.”

“There will be an effort by our Democratic friends to use their majority to affect presidential politics,” Graham said. “My goal is to make them pay a price for that as much as I can and to be creative to how we can counterattack.”

Some of those calculations appear to have played out this week. Democrats were looking to move quickly past a vote on Iraq policy and hold a debate on the economy — the biggest issue in the campaign and something Democrats see as a gaping hole in McCain’s record. McCain has not said how he would vote on a bill that Democrats call an answer to the nation’s housing crisis. Republicans oppose the measure because it contains a controversial bankruptcy provision that would help bail out some troubled borrowers.  

But in a surprise move, Graham and other Republicans voted to revive the war debate instead of quickly disposing with an Iraq-withdrawal amendment. The move postponed debate on the housing measure and gave Republicans the opportunity to spotlight the decrease in violence in Baghdad resulting from the troop surge that McCain staked his political future on.

Neither side is willing to admit that presidential politics had anything to do with their floor strategies. But senators from both parties acknowledge there is no way of preventing the chamber from reflecting the campaign trail since two sitting senators will face off in a presidential general election for the first time in U.S. history.

“There ain’t going to be a lot of ‘bringing us together’ between now and November,” Graham said, referring to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) call for unity. “There’s going to be a lot of jockeying for political advantage. It’s sad, but true.”

One of the ways that Democrats may choose to jockey is by bringing up bills that would make McCain decide whether to anger wary conservatives by burnishing his maverick reputation or turn off independent voters by standing beside President Bush. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said his party has not discussed that strategy but acknowledged that “some of the votes we take to the floor will have some impact on the presidential campaign.”

One such measure expected to hit the floor early this year would set economy-wide restrictions on industrial greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. It puts McCain in a quandary since he is one of a small number of Republicans to call for mandatory caps on emissions.