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2010 Complete Election Coverage: Joe Biden gives Chris Coons Senate pointers

Vice President Joe Biden has already offered some practical advice to his newest home-state senator: Don’t get nice digs in D.C.

Sen.-elect Chris Coons, who will be sworn in Monday afternoon in anticipation of the lame duck session, said the vice president warned him that the Washington-area living quarters he chooses could end up impacting how often he returns to the Delaware.

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“He said, ‘Make it as physically uncomfortable as possible to spend the night. Don’t get a nice place, don’t get a nice room. Get a cot in the office or rent something small and cramped an unpleasant because there will always be pressures to stay. There will always be staff and functions and one more meeting and you know, if you stay over sir, then first thing tomorrow morning you can do X, Y or Z and it’ll always be hard to make the last train,” Coons told a small gathering of reporters in Sen. Tom Carper’s Washington office Monday morning.

“And his point was, you have the best of intentions right now, but if you get a nice comfortable place, the first year it’s one night a week, the next year it’s two nights a week, the next year it’s three and four years from now, you’ll miss every game your son plays in. I thought that was very insightful, frankly, about how things like that happen gradually,” he said.

Coons, who easily disposed of Republican Christine O’Donnell by almost 17 percentage points in a year of historic GOP gains, said he’s received considerable advice from family, law school friends and even Delawareans serving overseas in the 13 days since his victory.

“If there’s a common theme to the advice, it’s take a deep breath. Listen. And be focused on delivering the results folks are hoping for,” he said. “What I get more often than not is, be respectful and listen and learn the rules, but be insistent. Try and push for some change.”

The New Castle County executive is expected to be sworn in at 4 p.m., along with West Virginia Sen.-elect Joe Manchin. He’ll use a Bible from the West Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, where he used to serve as a guest preacher before it closed its doors last year. Tomorrow, the freshly minted senator will spend a portion of his day celebrating his 14th wedding anniversary in a nice hotel.

“The cot doesn’t start until I’ve got an office I can actually put a cot in,” he said.

When Coons mentioned he had the predictable “Which Bible?” conversation this morning with his wife, his spokesperson assured reporters that the senator-elect did not mean “a witch Bible,” making an obvious reference to O’Donnell’s admission that she once “dabbled in witchcraft.” The video of O’Donnell’s comments from “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher” resulted in her memorable “I’m Not A Witch” campaign ad and several now infamous “Saturday Night Live” skits that helped vault the Delaware race into the national spotlight.

“I didn’t say that,” Coons assured reporters, prompting laughs.

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While Congress is in session this week, most of the activity is expected to take place off the House and Senate floors. Any action on appropriation bills or extending the Bush administrations tax cuts is likely to happen once members return after Thanksgiving.

Coons said he remained skeptical about extending tax cuts for the wealthy because he is not convinced that doing so would foster job growth in the short run. But he had initial praise for the bipartisan deficit commission’s initial draft report, released last week, which has taken fire from both parties.

“I think we ought to keep all those cards on the table and look at them hard,” he said, calling the plan laid out by former Sen. Alan Simpson and former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles “thoughtful and serious.”

Other than Manchin, Coons has so far only spoken with Connecticut Sen.-elect Richard Blumenthal but said he was eager to meet the 13 incoming GOP freshman senators, and hopes that many share his goal of bipartisanship.

“I’m not naive about how difficult that may be,” he said. “My hope is that some other freshman senators are coming here with that same message.”


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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