The Audacity of Hope

“Nothing. You wanna talk to Mommy?”
There were a handful of senators who also had young families, and whenever we met
we would compare notes on the pros and cons of moving to Washington, as well as the
difficulty in protecting family time from overzealous staff. But most of my new
colleagues were considerably older—the average age was sixty—and so as I made the
rounds to their offices, their advice usually related to the business of the Senate. They
explained to me the advantages of various committee assignments and the
temperaments of various committee chairmen. They offered suggestions on how to
organize staff, whom to talk to for extra office space, and how to manage constituent
requests. Most of the advice I found useful; occasionally it was contradictory. But
among Democrats at least, my meetings would end with one consistent
recommendation: As soon as possible, they said, I should schedule a meeting with
Senator Byrd—not only as a matter of senatorial courtesy, but also because Senator
Byrd’s senior position on the Appropriations Committee and general stature in the
Senate gave him considerable clout.
At eighty-seven years old, Senator Robert C. Byrd was not simply the dean of the
Senate; he had come to be seen as the very embodiment of the Senate, a living,
breathing fragment of history. Raised by his aunt and uncle in the hardscrabble coalmining
towns of West Virginia, he possessed a native talent that allowed him to recite
long passages of poetry from memory and play the fiddle with impressive skill. Unable
to afford college tuition, he worked as a meat cutter, a produce salesman, and a welder
on battleships during World War II. When he returned to West Virginia after the war, he
won a seat in the state legislature, and he was elected to Congress in 1952.
In 1958, he made the jump to the Senate, and during the course of forty-seven years he
had held just about every office available—including six years as majority leader and
six years as minority leader. All the while he maintained the populist impulse that led
him to focus on delivering tangible benefits to the men and women back home: black
lung benefits and union protections for miners; roads and buildings and electrification
projects for desperately poor communities. In ten years of night courses while serving in
Congress he had earned his law degree, and his grasp of Senate rules was legendary.
Eventually, he had written a four-volume history of the Senate that reflected not just
scholarship and discipline but also an unsurpassed love of the institution that had shaped
his life’s work. Indeed, it was said that Senator Byrd’s passion for the Senate was
exceeded only by the tenderness he felt toward his ailing wife of sixty-eight years (who
has since passed away)—and perhaps by his reverence for the Constitution, a pocketsized
copy of which he carried with him wherever he went and often pulled out to wave
in the midst of debate.
I had already left a message with Senator Byrd’s office requesting a meeting when I
first had an opportunity to see him in person. It was the day of our swearing in, and we
had been in the Old Senate Chamber, a dark, ornate place dominated by a large,
gargoyle-like eagle that stretched out over the presiding officer’s chair from an awning
of dark, bloodred velvet. The somber setting matched the occasion, as the Democratic
Caucus was meeting to organize itself after the difficult election and the loss of its
leader. After the new leadership team was installed, Minority Leader Harry Reid asked
Senator Byrd if he would say a few words. Slowly, the senior senator rose from his seat,
a slender man with a still-thick snowy mane, watery blue eyes, and a sharp, prominent