Senators Rank Bipartisan Colleagues

If you want to reach across the aisle in the Senate, chances are you're stretching toward Ted Kennedy or Susan Collins, according to a Hill survey of the upper chamber. “I’d love to co-sponsor every piece of legislation with Ted Kennedy,” says Sen. Richard Burr. The most partisan least faves? Democrat Patrick Leahy, for whom Dick Cheney had some explicit advice in 2004, and Republican Jim Bunning is so partisan that many Dems won’t talk to him except about baseball.

Bunning and other highly partisan Republicans are “a bunch of 4-year-olds,” says one Democrat. The most difficult Dems, including Leahy and Chuck Schumer, are “guys that like to wield their positions,” said a Republican. The leaders of both parties cited each other as their favorite people to work with—um, “because I have to,” says majority leader Harry Reid.
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