On January 3, when members of the 119th Congress are sworn in, Tom Carper will be out of work, for the first time in four dozen years, handing over his seat in the U.S. Senate to one of his many proteges, U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester.
Those 48 years in elective office put Carper two years short of the Delaware record set by one of his contemporaries and early inspirations, outgoing President Joe Biden. But Carper holds another distinction that Biden will never touch: a 14-0 record winning statewide elections – three 2-year terms as state treasurer, five 2-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, two 4-year terms as governor and four 6-year terms in the Senate.
It has been a long, successful ride for the centrist Democrat – a ride that includes nearly 600,000 miles in his fabled 2001 Chrysler Town and Country minivan – and hardly what he anticipated growing up in West Virginia and rural Virginia as he dreamed of playing third base for the Detroit Tigers.
Carper’s path to Delaware began in an unlikely place – in Southeast Asia, where he was flying P-3 patrol aircraft as a Navy flight officer during the Vietnam War. It was near the end of 1972, mail call day, and his copy of Newsweek magazine had just arrived.
“They had this big, big issue on the election of 1972 and I read through it, and I came across a story about a guy, a 29-year-old who had been elected to the U.S. Senate, who was still too young to serve, and it’s in a little state called Delaware,” Carper recalled in an interview with Delaware Public Media.
“I didn’t know what to expect… people already talking about him maybe running for president someday… I fully expected him to be just full of himself and he could not have been nicer... And he and I have been friends ever since.”Senator Tom Carper on his first significant interaction with Joe Biden.
Carper had been to Delaware once before, in 1969, when he and a colleague in flight school “hitchhiked” on military aircraft from Corpus Christi, Texas, to visit the friend’s family in Baltimore. Their circuitous route took them to Dover Air Force Base, where they hitched a ride – by land, this time – on a milk truck to their destination. The friendliness of the few Delawareans he met along the way made a positive impression.
That quick stop and the Newsweek article about Senator-elect Biden got Carper to thinking, “if I don’t stay in the Navy for a career, that’s a place I may want to go visit.” In early 1973, when his tour of active duty ended, Carper began exploring his options for graduate school. His search led him to the University of Delaware, where he had a welcoming interview with two members of the business school faculty, toured the campus in Newark and found it “just gorgeous.”
Starting out in politics
Before settling in Delaware, Carper had already developed an interest in politics. As an ROTC cadet at Ohio State University, he had volunteered to work in the 1968 campaign of the antiwar Democratic candidate for president, Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy. As part of that 1969 visit with his friend to Baltimore, he made a side trip to Washington, D.C., where he knocked on the door to McCarthy’s office on a Saturday afternoon and wound up having a half-hour chat with the senator.
While studying for his MBA degree, Carper yearned for a taste of politics. He connected with Jim Soles, the beloved UD political science professor, and volunteered to work on Soles’ fruitless campaign to unseat Pete du Pont from the U.S. House of Representatives. In mid-campaign, Soles’ treasurer moved out of state and a replacement was needed. So, in Carper’s recounting, Soles said “’Tom, well, he’s an MBA student, he can add and subtract,’ so I ended up being campaign treasurer.”
During the campaign, Carper had his first significant interaction with Biden, when the young senator invited Soles and his brain trust to his house to talk politics. “I didn’t know what to expect… people already talking about him maybe running for president someday... I fully expected him to be just full of himself and he could not have been nicer... He was anxious to be helpful, to talk about his mistakes, what he learned from his mistakes in the campaign... And he and I have been friends ever since.”
The story of Carper’s official entry into Delaware electoral politics has become the stuff of legend. Sitting on the sand in Rehoboth Beach with some alumni of the failed Soles campaign, he was listening to the 1976 state Democratic convention on the radio. Candidates were being nominated for every slot on the ticket, but no one wanted to run for treasurer.
He turned to the woman sitting next to him and said, “I think I’m going to be the Democratic candidate for state treasurer. And she said, ‘you’ve been out in the sun too long.’” A week later he announced his candidacy. “Most people yawned, and those who didn’t yawn just laughed,” he said.
Carper quit his job with the state Office of Economic Development, dumped the money he had saved while in the Navy into his campaign war chest, walked and drove up and down the state and defeated his Republican opponent by a 56-43 margin.
“Most people yawned, and those who didn’t yawn just laughed."When no one wanted to run for state treasurer in 1976, Tom Carper did.
Carper’s six years as treasurer overlapped with much of du Pont’s two terms as governor. While not partners politically, there were occasions where they did have to collaborate.
DuPont, after his regrettable “Delaware is bankrupt” proclamation and the ensuing override of his veto of the state budget by a Democrat-controlled General Assembly in 1977, became a leading exemplar of “the Delaware Way,” successfully gathering opposing factions to find solutions to pressing issues. Observing these efforts would lead Carper down a path of bipartisanship that became a hallmark of his career.
One episode stands out with Carper. It came after he supported du Pont and his team in efforts to have Wall Street bankers raise the state’s bond rating. When du Pont got the news that the rating has been elevated, Glenn Kenton, du Pont’s secretary of state, called Carper to let him know. The conversation, Carper recalled, went something like this:
“I said, ‘that’s great, congratulations. Tell the governor I’m really happy.’ … Kenton said, ‘the governor thinks you should announce it.’ … I said ‘why?’ and he said, ‘the governor thinks you had something to do with this.’”
Five terms in the House
During Carper’s third term as treasurer, the General Assembly passed legislation lengthening the terms for several state offices, including treasurer and auditor, from two to four years. Carper had launched his campaign, hoping for another victory and the prospect of not having to run every other year. But Biden had other ideas.
While Carper was campaigning at the 1982 Delaware State Fair, he crossed paths with Biden, who pulled him aside. The senator’s message was direct: Tom Evans, the Republican congressman, was vulnerable and internal party polling indicated that Carper could beat the incumbent if he could raise his profile among eligible voters. Biden was persuasive. Moments before the filing deadline, Carper entered the House race and went on to defeat Evans by a 53-46 margin.
While Carper served five terms in the House, developing expertise on environmental and finance issues, perhaps his greatest achievement in that decade was his leadership in ousting corrupt members from leadership of the state’s Democratic party, especially in New Castle County. His success in reforming the party and installing his allies in leadership roles would pave the way for his next step up the political ladder.
“The Swap”
While the 1992 presidential election is remembered for Democrat Bill Clinton ending the Republicans’ 12-year occupancy of the White House, Delaware’s statewide elections produced a signature outcome that has become known in the state’s political lore as “The Swap.” Under the state Constitution, Gov. Mike Castle could not seek a third term but he was hardly ready to retire. So he sought to take Carper’s seat in the House; Carper, prominent and popular, chose to leave Congress and run for governor. Both won their races handily, with Castle defeating former Lt. Gov. S.B. Woo and Carper taking down real estate executive B. Gary Scott.
As governor, Carper practiced much of what he learned from Pete du Pont, starting with “surrounding yourself with the best people you can find.” Like du Pont, he reached outside the state to recruit some key Cabinet members. With the Senate controlled by Democrats and the House by Republicans throughout his two terms, Carper knew he had to “work across the aisle to get stuff done.”
Carper’s administration was, for the most part, moderate and pro-business but is notable for some significant initiatives. He persuaded General Motors not to shut down its assembly plant near Newport – a move that would come a decade later – and convinced AstraZeneca to build its new headquarters on Concord Pike north of Wilmington. (AstraZeneca has since moved on but the related highway improvements serve as a reminder of Carper’s efforts.) He also ensured continuing state support for the redevelopment of Wilmington’s Riverfront.
On the education front, Carper supported and signed legislation establishing public charter schools in the state (his sons later graduated from the Charter School of Wilmington), placed wellness centers in every public high school and nurses in every school. Social issues were another major focus for Carper. His Family Services Cabinet Council tried to coordinate interdepartmental efforts to support members of the state’s neediest families.
Back to the Nation’s Capital
Just as Mike Castle sought a U.S. House seat because he wasn’t ready to retire after his second term as governor in 1992, Carper faced a similar situation in 2000. His only option was to run for the U.S. Senate but four-term Republican incumbent Bill Roth, known as the creator of the Roth Individual Retirement Accounts, stood in his way. Roth might have been popular but he was 79 years old and, late in the campaign, his age began to show. Youth triumphed, and Carper entered the Senate three days before his 54th birthday.
In the Senate, Carper was a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderates, and served on numerous committees, including those overseeing the environment, public works, finance, energy, natural resources, health care and homeland security.
Of his work in the Senate, Carper says he is most proud of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which originated in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which he chaired. He speaks with pride about Biden summoning him to the White House in early 2021, telling him to bring along Republicans and Democrats on the committee and receiving marching orders from the president: “Report the bill out of your committee by the Fourth of July.” Carper met his deadline. Five months later Congress passed the bill and Biden signed it into law.
Carper offered his farewell remarks to his fellow senators on Wednesday. On Friday, the House was poised to pass the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act of 2024, a bill that funds key waterway infrastructure projects, including several in Delaware. The legislation, which originated in Carper's Environment and Public Works Committee, was titled as a tribute to the senator.
While in the Senate, Carper was part of a small bipartisan fraternity – that group of lawmakers who had served as both governors and senators. Much as he has enjoyed the Senate, he makes it clear, as others in this group have, that there’s being able to get things done as a governor beats the seemingly endless debate that goes on in the legislative branch.
Talk to a senator who was once a governor and ask them which job they like better, Carper suggests. “If they say they like being a senator best, I say they’ll lie about a lot of other things too,” he says.
The end of “the Silver Bullet”
Through his first 20 years in the Senate, Carper traveled up and down the state and often to and from the Capitol in his minivan, dubbed “the Silver Bullet,” usually driven by aides who would eventually secure meaningful positions within state government. The odometer gave out around the 530,000 mile mark, and aides estimate it was pushing 600,000 miles when time for a trade-in neared.
Asking about the minivan’s fate resulted, in true Carper style, to a digression about the first car he ever bought. It was a 1962 Chevy Corvair Monza, the model Ralph Nader savaged in his best-selling “Unsafe at Any Speed,” purchased from a professor at Ohio State. “In the winter, you turned on the heater, carbon monoxide came out…. I had a hard time getting dates,” he said. When he headed to Navy flight school in 1969, he sold the Corvair for $1.
“We have a [president-elect] who’s out to kill it [clean energy] and doesn’t believe in climate change... When we save the planet, we provide a lot of economic opportunities, job creation.”Tom Carper plans to continue promoting clean energy jobs.
Back to the minivan. Alex, an immigrant from Central America who did yard work for Carper and some of his neighbors in Wilmington, mentioned that he would be interested in buying the vehicle when the senator was ready to sell.
Carper said he could have it for $1. So they went to the Division of Motor Vehicles to transfer the title, followed the clerk’s instructions to write the sales price on the back of the form, and sign their names.
“She says, ‘there’s a fee you have to pay for the transfer.’ I say ‘how much?’ She says, ‘it’s 3 percent’ and I said ‘how much would that be?’ She said, ‘three cents.’ I gave her a nickel and told her to keep the change.”
These days Carper gets around in a red 2021 Model Y Tesla.
“Mr. [Elon] Musk makes a pretty good car, a really good car,” Carper admits. “But in terms of his foreign policy and domestic policy, no thank you.”
Exiting the stage
While Carper’s political career may be sunsetting, he hopes to remain active on two fronts – one national and one local – that helped define his public life.
He says he will continue to advocate for creating jobs that promote clean energy.
“We have a [president-elect] who’s out to kill it and doesn’t believe in climate change,” Carper said. “When we save the planet, we provide a lot of economic opportunities, job creation.”
Locally, he wants to return to mentoring – a family-strengthening initiative he launched when he was governor. “I’ve mentored a number of young boys, almost all who grew up in families with no fathers…. It’s hard to do,” he says. “Some of my mentees turned out great, but one of them is in prison in Smyrna. So that happens too.”
As Carper completes his final days in office, he has great confidence in Lisa Blunt Rochester’s ability to succeed him.
After all, before serving eight years in Congress she worked with him in several roles: as an intern and case worker when he was in the House and as deputy secretary of health and social services and as secretary of labor when he was governor.
“She works across the aisle very well. She focuses on the right issues,” he says. “My only advice for Lisa: Don’t change a thing.”
