Obama vs McCain: Legislative Potential

[cp]

As a bit of brain food to distract us, I'll throw out a question I got at a lecture last month:

Who will be more successful at working with the 111th Congress and why?

It's worth noting that for the first time in many, many years the next President will have previous experience working in the U.S. Congress passing legislation. McCain's been doing it for decades, Obama for just a few years, but both are familiar with the wheeling and dealing, the alliances, the rivalries, etc. Given that the next Congress is almost certainly going to be Democrat-controlled (possibly filibuster-proof) which candidate would do best?

[Beet]

I doubt the Democrats will be able to get a filibuster-proof majority. That said, Obama obviously faces fewer structural hurdles in working with Congress, whereas it is hard to see how McCain does not benefit from his years of experience in the Senate. With McCain, I see a mixed record with successes in areas where he and Congress are able to work in a bipartisan fashion, but these areas will necessarily be pretty limited. It would not be surprising if it eventually were a continuation of what we have seen in the past couple years. With Obama we would be more likely to see some swift, decisive changes passed, with the one caveat that it must be acceptable enough not to provoke a filibuster or Blue Dog defections.