Moderates from both political parties will hold the key to power in a Senate split down the middle at 50-50. The four moderate senators spoke on CBS Television's "Face the Nation" program Sunday morning.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which gets first crack at Ashcroft in hearings, said, "Governor Bush is allowed a little latitude in his Cabinet officers'' but added that the conservative anti-abortion attorney general nominee makes moderate balance in the Cabinet important.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Ashcroft is a man with "highest honor and integrity'' and that she could vote for him.
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who had been floated as a possible running mate for Vice President Al Gore in this year's presidential election, said, "There is a perception of correctness'' but "question could be there.''
Graham said Ashcroft's opposition to President Clinton's nomination of Missouri Supreme Court Justice Ron White to a federal judgeship may raise some eyebrows. White, a black, appeared qualified to Democrats, yet socially conservative Ashcroft, then a U.S. Senator from Missouri, blocked the appointment.
But John Breaux, D-La., said Ashcroft would be confirmed: "He has to enforce the laws of the United States, even if he disagrees with them,'' he said, addressing concerns from pro-choice and other socially liberal interests.
Ashcroft, one of the most socially conservative members of the Senate, lost to the late Gov. Mel Carnahan in Missouri's U.S. Senate race, even after the governor died before the election. Jean Carnahan, the governor's widow, will take the seat.
Bush vowed a $1.3 trillion tax cut during the campaign. All four senators felt he might have to pare back or modify his proposal.
Graham said the incoming administration is talking up potential economic woes partly to lay groundwork for a big tax cut.
"They are using [the slowing economy] as a pre-emptive strike so it gives them somebody else to blame,'' Graham said, but also "building support for a tax cut.''
Graham said the nation could afford a tax cut but needed to address Social Security and health care issues first.
Graham said a tax cut needs to be "a now tax cut,'' not one that takes effect over years, as does the Bush proposal.
A cut of between $500 billion and $1.3 trillion "leaves a lot of room for compromise,'' Graham said.
Snowe, too, said a huge cut may have to wait, or come about in smaller bites.
"We have to start off with what we can pass, the marriage and estate taxes,'' Snowe said.
Specter expected less than the $1.3 trillion cut still promised by Bush: "We've heard the campaign talk; now let's hear what they really want.''
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