Appreciation to Senate Colleagues and Staff

APPRECIATION TO SENATE COLLEAGUES AND STAFF -- (Senate - December 08, 2006)

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, from time to time over the last 12 years, new Senators have come up to me as they have come to the body and asked the question: How do you do this job? And I usually have responded: Well, what do you want to be? Do you want to run for President? Do you want to be on the Sunday shows? Do you want to pass legislation? A surprising number of them have said they came here to pass legislation, important legislation for America that would make a difference. To every single one who said that, I said: Watch Mike DeWine. Go study Mike DeWine. The most prodigious, the most effective, the most extraordinary legislator in my time here in the Senate. Quiet, effective, a consensus builder. You see by those who are on the floor here tonight that he has friends on both sides of the aisle whom he has worked with, cultivated,
and built the kind of relationships that make a Senator effective.

So I would say to my good friend, the senior Senator from Ohio, he is a Senator's Senator, the perfect Senator, the master of the art of making a difference. Farewell.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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