Carey Lackman was one of those who make the Hill run
by David Keene

Circumstances last week turned a typical Washington fundraising breakfast, indistinguishable from hundreds of such affairs, into something quite different.

It was originally organized by supporters of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to refill campaign coffers drained during a hard-fought primary. But Carey Lackman,

Specter's long-time chief of staff and closest political confidant, passed away the morning before, and that changed everything.

Many of those who showed up hadn't even known Carey was sick. They'd worked with her for years and found it almost impossible to believe that someone they knew, whom they had worked with, and who had seemed as indestructible and unflappable as she was could be gone just like that.

Except it wasn't "just like that." Carey knew she had cancer, but thought she had it beat. Years later, it came back with a vengeance. Very few who worked with her knew; she worked almost to the end at the job that had dominated and become her life.

The weekend before she died, she finally did something that was no doubt difficult to schedule while she'd been working seven days a week ... she got married. When Specter visited her the night before she died, she told him that she was at peace and that she had no regrets because, as she put it, she'd "had a good run."

Carey was only 48. She came to town to work for then-Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.) at the age of 24, and though she'd left twice to join what many Hill staffers refer to as "the real world," she kept coming back. She came back not for the power, although she was one of the more powerful staffers in the Senate, nor because she couldn't make more money in the private sector, but because she loved the place and helped make it work.

Those who knew and worked with Carey came forward that morning to testify to the role she had played and to say simply that they would miss her. She had done so much for so many over the years, and I'm sure that each of us just wished we could have done more for her.

As I left the breakfast, I thought about Carey and about the dozens of others like her from both parties who make this marginally dysfunctional place work. They flock to town just out of college and find jobs on the Hill. Some come to change the world, and others come looking for their main chance. Most leave after a few years "to get on with their lives" or "to cash in" on the experience and contacts they've made -- to make money or to launch their personal political careers.

Unless you work directly with Congress, you hear only about the staffers who manage to mess things up or to step over the line -- or who manage to parlay their contacts into millions of dollars. There are others, though, who stay on because they are good at what they do, care deeply about the big picture and love the work. They're the people who make the place work.

The good ones understand both the institution and their own roles within it. When you talk to them, they never forget that they weren't elected themselves and are able to tell you where "their" member stands on an issue and to advise you on how to maximize your chances of getting your message to their boss. Everyone in Washington has an agenda, but the best staffers resist the temptation to let their prejudices override their responsibilities.

When Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) retired several years ago, he asked those attending his retirement party to look around at the young men and women gathered to honor him and then observed that "this place is run by children." Not children exactly, but anyone who spends much time walking the halls of Congress knows that most staffers haven't been at it for long and will move on within a few years.

Carey Lackman was one of those chosen to stick around or come back or to stay on to develop into the professionals who in the end hold the whole place together. She was one of those kids once and stayed on to become one of the best. She will be missed.

 

Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is a managing associate with Carmen Group, a D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm (www.carmengrouplobbying.com).