WASHINGTON — During an election year in which Democrats and Republicans are in a bare-knuckled fight to gain seats in Congress, Hawaii Democrat Daniel K. Inouye is traveling far and wide to work for a fellow senator's reelection.
But the colleague Inouye is trying to help is a Republican, Ted Stevens of Alaska.
Stevens, who has been indicted on corruption charges, has become a top Democratic target in a race that could be crucial to the party's hopes of securing a filibuster-proof majority.
But that hasn't stopped Inouye from putting his decades-long friendship with Stevens ahead of party loyalty, an unusual act in a Senate that has become bitterly partisan.
Inouye has traveled to Alaska to campaign for Stevens. He has contributed $10,000 from his political action committee to Stevens' campaign. And he has appeared as a "special guest" at a Washington fundraiser for Stevens.
"I want my partner to go back to Washington," Inouye said during a recent campaign appearance for Stevens in Alaska. "Our parties don't understand . . . but there are things that are more important than political considerations. And that's friendship."
So far, Inouye's support for Stevens has not elicited the Democratic ire that greeted Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential candidate, when he began campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Not that it would deter Inouye.
"We call each other brothers," Inouye said during a Senate tribute to Stevens last year, when he became the longest-serving Republican senator.
The two have much in common. Both are 84. Both represent the newest states, and the only noncontiguous ones. They have sat next to each other for years on the Defense Appropriations Committee, rotating as chairman and ranking member, depending on whose party holds the majority.
Inouye lost his right arm during World War II while fighting with the Japanese American 442nd Regiment in Italy. Stevens is also a decorated veteran of that war, having flown missions for the Flying Tigers in China.
Another bond they share, Inouye said jokingly but with pride: "He and I have received the crown of being 'pork men of the year.' " Alaska and Hawaii are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in per capita pork-barrel spending for 2008, according to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.
