Roy Blunt got a nice promotion on Election Day. The career politician is moving on up from the U.S. House to a de-luxe office in the Senate.
Voters in 2010 were feeling rambunctious to the point that some congressional incumbents did not make it out of the primary. Yet Blunt, a consummate Washington insider, breezed into office, drubbing Robin Carnahan in the general election by 14 points. The result confounded The Wall Street Journal, which sent a member of the editorial board to interview Blunt in an attempt to understand his magnetism.
The half-hour that Matthew Kaminski spent with Blunt did not provide much illumination. The piece, titled "Senator Earmark," opens with Blunt responding "Don't know" to a question and ends with the congressman heading for the door, mid-question, when the writer's half-hour is up.
In between, Kaminski describes Blunt's coziness with power.
His résumé includes his 10-year stint as a powerbroker during the party's previous House majority. He was right-hand man to former Majority Leader Tom DeLay and in his own right a powerful dispenser of patronage and influence.After the Republicans fell out of power in Congress in 2006, Blunt voted for the reviled bailout of the financial system. Yet this decision and others didn't seem to bother voters. Blunt tells Kaminski that Carnahan's attempt to portray him as a D.C. slimeball failed because the Carnahan name is so tied to politics. "I was the first Blunt ever elected to anything," he says.
No voters were more riled up than the tea partiers. Blunt says the GOP is happy to implement the movement's ideas -- but only to a point. Ol' Roy sounds like he's not ready to let go of the earmarks that have come to symbolize Washington profligacy. Blunt notes that anti-Washington favorites Ron Paul and Rand Paul can't even agree on the subject. (Papa Paul has made earmark requests.)
"I'll let the Pauls work that out and then I'll see where they come down," Blunt told Kaminski, which made both of them laugh, because people in Washington have really bad senses of humor.
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