Politico on Rhode Island in the Senate

A strong piece in Politico on the changing culture of the United States Senate speaks to Rhode Island's outsize clout in the chamber:

Rhode Island’s Reed stands out most, leading by his quiet example. In his 12 years, he has established an extraordinary committee base affecting domestic and defense policy; with the U.S. at a crossroads in Afghanistan, the West Pointer is someone listened to by the president’s civilian advisers — and generals.

“You have to work hard at being substantive,” he says. “Sometimes substantive analysis can mean you take a position that is partisan but it is not a reaction to the focus of the moment or what the message of the day is.”

“I started a leg up ’cause of him,” says Whitehouse, who arrived two years ago and has enjoyed something of a charmed existence since — beginning with a back-row Senate desk near Kennedy’s bearing the marks of two Rhode Island predecessors, Sens. John Pastore and Claiborne Pell, who served more than 60 years between them.

“Carved in the drawer in great big letters: PASTORE. Beneath that, in tiny little letters: Pell, dash, R.I.,” Whitehouse says. “Can you believe it? Like there was going to be some question?”

Raised as a “Foreign Service brat” and with a seat now on the Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse isn’t shy about taking trips overseas — helping him meet Republicans like Cochran. The delayed seating of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) created an opening for him this summer to fill in — and shine — on Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Whitehouse’s state experience with health insurance was an asset.

"People ask about Ted Kennedy being gone and who replaces him,” Mann says. “I said, ‘No one, ever’ — just give him that uniqueness. But if I had to name someone who is promising if he sticks around the Senate, it would be Whitehouse.”