November 26, 2004, The Washington Post, Walls of 'Power' Photos Show Off Political Clout; Office Displays Change With Seats, by Maureen Fan,

November 26, 2004, The Washington Post, Walls of 'Power' Photos Show Off Political Clout; Office Displays Change With Seats, by Maureen Fan, 700+ words, 

Among the hundreds of photos and other mementos acquired by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell over more than a decade on Capitol Hill, the most personal already have been bubble-wrapped and boxed and personally trucked home to Colorado.

Yet scores more remain on the walls of his office, next to exposed nails and suddenly empty spaces, awaiting completion of Campbell's lame-duck session of Congress. Soon, they, too, will be shipped out, their jobs finished -- for the time being.

"Part of it is memories. Part of it is maybe what we call name- dropping," said Campbell, a Republican and chief of the Northern Cheyenne tribe who is retiring after serving two terms. "From my standpoint, when Indians visit, some of them say, 'By golly, we've arrived.' They say, 'Oh, boy, my senator has some clout.' "

Over the next few weeks, the distinctly Washingtonian collection of celebrity photos will be rearranged as powerbrokers move in and out of offices. These tableaus of power often showcase a politician's most important constituent or reflect a turning point in a career. They can demonstrate a lobbyist's connections or serve as a kind of visual resume.

Displayed right off the nation's corridors of power, the so- called ego walls convey clout, signal respect and hard work well into a politician's second or third career. It's a meet wall, a bragging wall, a glory wall.

Six senators and more than 10 members of the House are leaving office this session, each after serving at least two decades. With them go years of schmoozing, made portable and framed for posterity.

Campbell's photographs with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, his Olympic judo-competition tributes and the magazine cover signed by the late Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina will go to Fort Lewis College in Colorado. There, curators will re-create his office, complete with the lodgepole-pine office furniture handcarved by Campbell's son.

But Campbell has saved his favorite celebrity photos for himself. Partly because Fort Lewis won't want them. And because he has long nursed dreams of opening a restaurant. If he can talk his wife into supporting his next hobby, photos of actresses Melanie Griffith and Bo Derek and NFL Hall of Famers John Elway and Joe Montana could come in handy.

Some Washingtonians insist that ego walls are simply a means of sharing fond memories. But like the celebrity photos in restaurants and tailor shops across town, they are memories that impress constituents and customers.

In the coming weeks, newcomers to Capitol Hill will unpack mementos and take their cues from veterans in office. When Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb.) arrived in 2001, he put up photographs of his days as head coach at the University of Nebraska, where he led the Cornhuskers to three national championships.

The walls in the office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) are decorated with portraits, including a Roy Lichtenstein rendition of Robert Kennedy, originally commissioned for a Time magazine cover in 1968, and an Andy Warhol portrait of Ted Kennedy. The senator also is pictured with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Elton John and Kennedy's beloved sailboat Mya, sailing in a race across Nantucket Sound.

The first thing that greets visitors to the office of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is a wall of fame, including the six-term senator with President Bush and former president Ronald Reagan, with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, with outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former astronaut and senator John Glenn -- even with Spider-Man.

Stevens's favorites are around the corner -- 14 photographs of him hooking sailfish in the 1940s, or catching a chest-high king salmon in 1995. The fish itself, weighing 61 pounds, is mounted in Stevens's inner office.

"This is the celebrity wall," said Suzanne Palmer, an assistant in charge of decorating Stevens's office. "He was not real happy with this. He would rather be shown with his constituents. But the constituents would rather see him with celebrities. So we try to please everyone."

Members of Congress can be as starstruck as their constituents.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who chairs the entertainment task force, has framed photographs of himself with Clint Eastwood and John Travolta, souvenirs from official visits to Capitol Hill. The biggest photograph in Foley's office, however, is of his grandmother. It shares a table with a photograph of Foley -- and the pope.

The future for ego walls could look a lot like those in the Northwest Washington office of former New York representative Stephen J. Solarz, where framed photographs of fellow Democrats and dictators line the walls and windowsills. Each reflects a different story, but all remind visitors that the nine-term member of Congress was so prominent in international affairs that he could command one-on-one meetings with foreign leaders.

There is a photo of some members of Congress, circa 1975, that includes Rep. Leo J. Ryan (D-Calif.), who was shot to death in Guyana in 1978 while investigating abuses at the Rev. Jim Jones's Peoples Temple. "He asked me to go with him," said Solarz, who couldn't make the trip.

In one corner, Solarz is white-water rafting with Oscar Arias, then-president of Costa Rica. In another corner, a series of black- and-white pictures shows Solarz with the presidents of Zambia, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt. Elsewhere, he stands with the leaders of Turkey, Pakistan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Japan, Cuba and India. Often, he is shown with not one, but three prime ministers from one country.

"A lot of these people I befriended because I thought they were all struggling for democracy," said Solarz, now an international consultant at APCO Worldwide.

National interests and the prospects for democracy also meant he met with "some of the world's most terrible tyrants." One of them is in a drawer, out of view. "I just show it to friends," Solarz said of his 1982 photo with deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

And the term "ego wall"? Solarz hates it. He has been called a lot of things in his life, he said, but egomaniac is not one of them.

Dave McCurdy, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, is with the Electronic Industries Alliance, a national trade organization. "When you leave government, you've got these boxes upon boxes of photographs and plaques, so you do a triage of what's worth keeping and what's not," McCurdy said.

His clients are bipartisan, and by necessity so is his ego wall. In his study, visitors can see McCurdy jogging with former president Bill Clinton, standing with President Bush. Boxed in the basement are photos of McCurdy with actors Tom Selleck and Kevin Costner and Yankees manager Joe Torre.

"I see frames of reference over time," McCurdy said. "It's like a mini-diary."