Sen. Tom Carper prepares to leave politics
After 50 years of public service in Delaware, Sen. Tom Carper will retire in January 2025. 9/5/24
The longest moment of stillness in U.S. Sen. Tom Carper’s day may have come around 100 mph.
Early light washed the mostly empty dining car. A folder of paperwork, white-corded earbuds and bundled remnants of a coffee-banana breakfast claimed the senator’s desk for the morning.
Here on the train, Carper says he gets the most done.
For well over an hour charging toward Washington D.C. from Wilmington, the senior senator will prepare, take calls from staffers, get a rundown of the day ahead, and make a point to ask what birthdays he should remember. But this late-July morning, he was distracted.
The 77-year-old kept looking up from work to discuss his life, to share stories of his service in the U.S. Navy. He’d ask questions of his own, too – including if this was a good place to stop, after a long tale about returning to Asia, as now the last Vietnam veteran in the Senate. Then, he’d start another.
Only with most of the ride spent did the earbuds go in, as he returned at least one missed call. He isn’t one to let anyone go ignored, or to sit still too long.
Carper has worked to shape Delaware politics for nearly 50 years. And now, after that constant service in statewide office – as treasurer, congressman, governor and back to the U.S. Senate – he must prepare to step away.
He might call it retirement. He would not call it an end to service. And the senator of over two decades probably didn’t want to think about “legacy” on his Amtrak commute with some six months left in his last term.
But his impact on a state he moved to for grad school is undeniable. For many, he set a standard for reaching across the aisle and engaging constituents. Then, he looked to mold Delaware’s next generation of Democratic leaders in his style.
So come January 2025, when Carper and another familiar patriarch of Delaware politics step away from public office – it’s a legacy that just might out-run him.
Legends start somewhere…
The radio murmured beside him through sun and salted air.
Some 48 years before that railway commute, one recent graduate was spending an afternoon on Rehoboth Beach, near a house rented with friends. For this one, relaxing had meant sitting on a blanket, listening to the radio broadcast of a state Democratic convention in July 1976.
Carper had just graduated with his MBA from the University of Delaware a year before, still serving in the Naval Reserves after three tours as a flight officer. Sitting on that beach, the new Delawarean had begun work within the state’s economic development office. His own parents thought he was crazy for the move, but he believed something was waiting for him.
On the radio, as he and early staffers tell it, broadcasters began discussing the office of state treasurer. Even with some four months until the election, with a state in rough financial waters, no one had wanted to run.
Carper remembers turning to a friend: Why not me?
“And they replied, ‘You’ve been out in the sun for too long,’” he recalled with a smile.
Carper was elected state treasurer at 29 years old – landing him in a Democratic Party already in the throes of transformation. One Sen. Joe Biden had just sealed an upset against Caleb Boggs for his U.S. Senate seat a few years earlier.
That’s the same Delaware senator who would call his friend “Tommy” to his living room to discuss running again.
Carper didn’t stop.
“Whether it was spending time together at the State Fair, or kicking off the final stretch of campaign season at the Sussex Jamboree, or riding the train back and forth together to Washington for nearly five decades, Jill and I have seen up close Tom’s single-minded focus on doing what’s best for our country, and for our state,” President Joe Biden told Delaware Online/The News Journal in a statement.
“As Delawareans, we’ve been lucky to call Tom our Treasurer, Congressman, Governor and Senator. And we’ve been lucky to call Tom and Martha our friends.”
It wasn’t necessarily his dream of playing third base for the Detroit Tigers, cooked up over a childhood in West Virginia, then Virginia coal-mining country. But he would claim a series of his own. Carper won 14 statewide elections in four decades.
By 35, he was elected the state’s first Democratic representative in 16 years. After a tumultuous campaign of some 100 days, fielding personal attacks and controversy, he beat out a Republican incumbent.
Carper continued to grow a hold on the party. With a decade in Congress before his election to governor in 1993, he’s credited by many close to him with “cleaning up” its ranks.
“We were part of a little group of Democrats who weren’t happy with the party apparatus and how it was running,” Delaware’s Secretary of State Jeff Bullock said, turning in an office chair he’s held longer than any other secretary of state in some 220 years. “We thought it was too exclusive, and we wanted to open it up – using nice words.”
Bullock worked as an intern one summer in Washington, at 22 years old. He later followed Carper for some 17 years, as a legislative assistant, director and eventually his longtime chief of staff.
“Tom Carper was a transformational figure, not only as a Democrat but as a political leader in our state,” Bullock said. “He turned the party around, made it look and sound and act more like the people that it represented.”
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More than one network to preserve
The first time he heard it, he cringed.
A crowd of around 100 laughed in the heat of a white tent, pitched on grasses of Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. On a muggy May morning, its visitor center was being renamed after one U.S. Sen. Tom Carper.
The chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had long sharpened advocacy for Delaware’s waterways, beaches and such wildlife refuges. Over 23 years, he has helped pass key conservation laws like the Great American Outdoors Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act and more, as explained by Regional Director Wendi Weber of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Carper’s remarks filled the tent, after it may have taken longer to shake nearly every hand he passed to reach it. Between jokes about a possible typo – or the curtain coming down to reveal “Joe Biden” on the new sign – he paused.
“We have a bunch of people here who are part of ‘Carper Town,’” he said. “It’s not my term, but somebody came up with it.”
The senator asked for a show of hands.
Palms sprouted in the crowd, as well as a few among overflow standing near the flapped door.
“The first time I heard it, I kind of cringed,” he said with a chuckle. “And I don’t cringe anymore. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.”
Bombay Hook falls among the largest expanses of tidal salt marsh left, intertwined with a network of rivers, crisscrossing streams and protected wetlands offering a stop for migrating birds. With such refuge, they can gather, grow and keep their course.
Really, given the loss of quality habitat along the Atlantic Flyway, it may be hard to find many in the region who never stopped there.
“Carper Town” sows its own intricate webbing of careers, connections and even love stories in Delaware that can be traced back to one leader. Seemingly countless interns, campaign managers, staffers and more have become high-ranking communication aides or public officials. And even away from official payrolls, he still influenced others who flew far.
Last year, U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester can remember her phone ringing at 10 a.m.
Flashing up at her was “TC,” her first boss in politics who was hosting an event in under an hour.
“I say, ‘Hello?’ And he didn’t even say hi; he just said: ‘I’m retiring,’” the Wilmington native recalled. “And he said, ‘I’m going to do a press conference. … Martha will be there, some staff, some of the media – and I’m going to have a cardboard cutout of you standing right next to me because I think you should run for this position.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.
Carper pushed her to run for office long after she got her start as his intern in his congressional office, after her work as labor secretary in his gubernatorial cabinet. When she did run, her 2016 election marked the first time Delaware sent any woman or person of color to Congress.
“People don’t do that, you know? In this era,” said the now-Senate hopeful, thinking back to Carper’s expressed support in the same May 2023 retirement announcement. Others may have expected the script. Now, her expected opponent in the general election is Republican Eric Hansen.
“It was really powerful to see him offer the torch – because you can’t pass it. I’ve got to get elected.”
Blunt Rochester is just one leader who plans to carry on pieces of Carper, including his approach to people and focus on climate. Gov. John Carney and Secretary of State Bullock mark other Carper alumni, while the list goes on.
And even if he didn’t land that congressional internship right out of college, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons also shares Carper impact.
He had a full-time job in 2000. He had toddler twin boys. His wife, Annie, was pregnant again in the middle of his campaign for New Castle County Council president. They were over-extended, without a sense of balance or path to victory.
But during his own tough campaign, looking to clinch a seat in the U.S. Senate from a Delaware legend in Republican Sen. Bill Roth – Carper was there.
“He had me go with him, stand next to him at high school football games, at 5K races, at community events, and he would introduce me to people,” Coons recalled from his Wilmington office. He shook his head.
“There is no reason for a U.S. Senate candidate currently serving as governor to help some obscure person running for county council president.”
But there was. Building the bench.
Coons called him a role model. One who was ready with advice, from parenting and leadership, to showing him the ropes – and the gym – on the Hill a decade later.
Carper had to figure out that balance for himself. He married Martha in 1985 and soon became the father of two sons, alongside a stepson from an earlier marriage. He kept their Wilmington address. Martha kept her career at DuPont, then at UD, as they hired a nanny who used to teach kindergarten to help with the growing Chris and Ben.
“They completed him,” said Sec. Bullock, also a friend of the family and longtime neighbor. “Martha, and then the boys, sort of completed him as an individual, gave him a more balanced perspective.”
Does that mean Martha could convince Carper to retire at a distant beach house, awaiting visiting grandchildren with iced tea on the porch?
Sounds like a lot of sitting still.
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‘Perpetual motion machine’
Pull into his Brandywine Hundred driveway early.
Have the newspaper, briefing book, any updates he needs waiting for him in the “Silver Bullet.” That’s the beloved, hopefully gassed-up, 2001 Chrysler Town & Country minivan. Your own paperwork, or printed pages of MapQuest directions and event logistics, should be largely memorized. Planning began weeks in advance.
“And then the day was off,” CR McLeod said, recalling thoughts as a driver and executive assistant to Carper for some six years, beginning with his first term in 2001.
“It’s stressful to ensure you’re getting him around. He would have a page or a multi-page schedule that we’re working from, everything from phone calls, phone-call meetings, staff meetings and then in-person visits to different venues around the state.”
Even in the car, explained the now-communications head for DelDOT, there was no “idle time.” Work ethic knew no pause, and he expected his staff to work just as hard.
Carper aimed to make constituent relations a cornerstone of his office. And for himself, he took it literally. Drivers would thread schedules up and down the state, often in a single day. Over about 20 years, the Silver Bullet covered some 600,000 miles before its own retirement.
“He’s kind of this perpetual motion machine,” said Mat Marshall, once-fellow driver and now-director of communications for Delaware’s Department of Justice.
Carper made a point to attend events across the state, to set up frequent calls with businesses and companies – to run the Caesar Rodney Half Marathon at least 35 times.
Well, the last could be credited more to his description as a “health nut,” who also habitually worked out six days a week.
He’s extremely competitive, too, which shouldn’t be surprising. Back in 2012, when questioned about his health at a campaign event, Carper responded by doing more than 30 push-ups on a folding table.
“He’s just a ridiculously active man,” Marshall said, having started as an intern the same year. “And it’s become very cliche to say that he ‘works harder than anybody’ – but he actually is the hardest-working person I’ve ever met. He’s got this driver basically because he doesn’t want to waste the time driving when he could be working.”
One of Carper’s many mantras is to surround himself with the best people possible. And the reach of that roster will remain at work.
Layers of Delaware legacy
Back under the tent at Bombay Hook, Carper told his crowd about a note he can’t forget.
Late on a Friday afternoon in the ‘90s, almost everyone had left the state office in Wilmington. Then-Gov. Carper stayed to take care of a few things, when he said a staffer carried in a letter.
From someone named Melissa, it read something like: “Hi, I’m writing to the governors of all 50 states. I’m going to ask all of you the same question, and that question is: What is the secret to happiness?”
For Sen. Tom Carper, he could define his life in impact.
As governor he led over eight balanced budgets – with tax cuts in seven of those years, as previously reported – record growth in employment, and a reduction in state debt, which led to Delaware’s earning AAA credit ratings for the first time in history.
Another of his signature gubernatorial achievements was kicking off the development of the Wilmington Riverfront, still a fixture of state efforts today.
Overall, Carper helped craft a party ideology of socially liberal, but moderate on fiscal issues. Throughout his career, he’s been a prominent symbol of “The Delaware Way” – a familiar ethos that this state is so small “we can get all the right people in one room and get things done,” as once described in The News Journal. That style comes with its own critics.
Unlike other U.S. senators, he also never strived for a national profile. In fact, some have said he never stopped thinking like a governor.
Since becoming the top Democrat on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee in 2017, he began honing a legacy there. Carper may say his passion for the environment was inspired during a childhood outside, but he knows his now-home-state is the lowest lying in the U.S.
Painting this legacy would also likely include his role in shepherding the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate law. Proponents would say his moderate, relentless, bipartisan style aided in seeing the package’s passage, as well as that of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“While his record of accomplishment is extraordinary in scope, it’s not what he’s done, but rather the way he’s done it, that sets him apart,” President Biden said. “For Tom, reaching across the aisle is the rule, not the exception.”
Delaware GOP released a statement upon his retirement announcement, recognizing years of commitment and public service across the state, “even if we did not often agree with his legislative priorities.” In Washington, the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act now nears final passage, with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, his fellow Republican ranking member, having formally moved to create its title.
The bill now bearing his name – as does a Newark train station, Bombay Hook and one UD Medal of Distinction – authorizes U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studies, projects and programs across the country.
In his term’s final months, he said: “I want to focus on saving the planet.”
Carper also helped craft key provisions within the Affordable Care Act on the Senate Finance Committee, while serving on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, as well.
Rep. Blunt Rochester doesn’t think anyone can “fill” all these shoes.
“I think that’s the beauty of this moment,” she said. “It’s what I hope people take away even from my run – that every single person can play a role right now. And I think even through very difficult times, it propels new leadership, new vision, new ideas.”
Back in 2018, Carper’s own toughest primary in years came in against progressive newcomer Kerri Evelyn Harris. She is now a state representative, as Carper ultimately defeated her before winning the general election.
While Carper Town, some of Carper’s political style and core beliefs will likely outlast him – Delaware’s Democratic Party will continue to evolve. Listing all of his successes, failures or endeavors in between would be a formidable task, but the Delaware legend won’t be ending his work just yet.
Back on the wildlife refuge, as on the train, Carper would not mention what’s next. He did, however, think back to his time as governor, pondering that one question about happiness. Then, he wrote back.
“Dear, Melissa,” he penned.
“Serve others. Sincerely, Tom.”
Got a story? Contact Kelly Powers at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @kpowers01.
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Publish date : 2024-09-16 22:19:00
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