Politicians Scramble on SOTU Seating Arrangements
The New York Times reports:
WASHINGTON — Mary from Louisiana asked Olympia from Maine because they are BFFs, but had a backup in Bob from Tennessee in case she was rebuffed. Kirsten from New York went the Sadie Hawkins route and asked John from South Dakota, and thus the deal between two members of the Senate with seriously good hair was sealed.
The talk in the West Wing may center on what President Obama plans to say on Tuesday in his State of the Union address to Congress about the still-ailing economy, or United States-China relations, or his education agenda. But here on Capitol Hill, the talk for the last few days has been all about the seating for the president’s speech and just who will be next to whom.
Ever since Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, pushed for lawmakers of both parties to mix it up rather than sit among their own in the House chamber as if the other side has cooties, there has been a mad scramble among lawmakers for just the right partner.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, was early out of the box, saying he would sit next to his political antipode, Senator Tom Coburn, the conservative Republican gentleman from Oklahoma.
Others are doing it by delegation; for instance, Colorado’s two Democratic senators and its four House Republicans will assemble as a group. Illinois’s bipartisan Senate duo,Richard J. Durbin and Mark Steven Kirk, will be joined at the seat, as will the one from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey and Pat Toomey.
Sometimes the link is shared interests, which in Washington does not mean cooking or cycling but committee assignments.
“I asked one of my best girlfriends to be my date for the night,” Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said of her choice, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. “Of course, we share the Small Business Committee.”
“I had backups in case she said no, like Corker or Isakson,” Ms. Landrieu said, referring to Senators Bob of Tennessee and Johnny of Georgia. “These are really great guys. So, we may do a triple date.”
Others who have paired off include Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, and John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, generally considered two of the more well-coiffed and attractive members of the Senate.
The idea of mixing and mingling was originally advocated by the centrist group Third Way after the Tucson shooting that left Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a moderate Democrat from Arizona, critically wounded and spurred calls for a more civilized political discourse.
