[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 57 (Wednesday, April 24, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S2921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Commending the President

  The other thing I want to say, if I could, is this: The President 
took some folks out for dinner last night. I do not know if our 
Presiding Officer was one of them. My guess is she was. I will talk to 
her later about what they had and how it went. But I commend the 
President for reaching out to Republicans and Democrats, Senators and 
Representatives. It is the kind of thing you have to do. It is the kind 
of thing you have to do if you want to get things done. As President, 
you have a million people pulling on you--300 million people pulling on 
you--and folks from around the world pulling on you, and it is hard to 
focus on building and rebuilding relationships here. It is absolutely 
necessary.
  I was talking with Angus King the other day. Angus--now our colleague 
here in the Senate, a great addition--used to be Governor of Maine. We 
were comparing notes as to his role as Governor of Maine and mine as 
Governor of Delaware, how we worked with the legislature. I am sure you 
could find people who were in the legislature when I was Governor who 
said: Thank God he is gone. But we actually worked pretty well 
together.
  One of the keys--not my idea but an idea that started with, I think, 
Pete du Pont, when he was Governor a number of years ago; also done by 
Mike Castle as Governor and Ruth Ann Minner as Governor and by me in 
between Governor Castle and Governor Minner--every Tuesday when the 
legislature was in session in Delaware--every Tuesday; they are usually 
in session on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays most weeks between 
January and June--I would host a lunch with the legislative leadership 
of the house and the senate, Democrats and Republicans from the house 
and the senate. Occasionally, we had somebody in from my 
administration, my staff. We would have lunch together. Sometimes we 
would talk about issues; sometimes we would talk about sports or 
whatever else was the topic of the day. We always had lunch together, 
and we did it week after week, month after month, year after year. You 
get to know people and you develop a sense of trust, and in many cases 
you kind of like each other.
  One of the keys to our success in Delaware is we sort of like each 
other, Democrats and Republicans. We work together, and we govern from 
the center.
  Angus had a similar story, only they did not do lunch together with 
the legislative leadership. They did breakfast together in Maine. He 
did it every week, every month, every year for the 8 years or so he was 
Governor.
  The President is doing something like that. He is doing like a DC 
version of that now. It is just great, and I urge him to keep it up.