When in Washington, D.C., Senators Richard Durbin and Charles Schumer and Representatives George Miller and William Delahunt share a two-bedroom row house on Capitol Hill nicknamed the “Animal House.” Among the myriad nuisances at this Miller-owned crash pad are rats, noisy crickets in the closets, and Schumer’s messy pullout bed in the living room.
But with this election season, a new problem surfaced among these Democratic roomies: presidential politics.
Durbin, of course, has supported Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primary. So have Miller, of California, and Delahunt, of Massachusetts—which left Schumer, who is from New York, as the house’s lone Hillary Clinton backer. As the big primaries in Texas and Ohio loomed, Durbin told Chicago the conflict was “a friendly rivalry. Over a glass of wine, we might talk politics. Sometimes it gets animated but never angry.”
Delahunt said Schumer didn’t mount a strong lobbying campaign for Hillary in the house. He didn’t hang signs or promise to clean the dishes if the others got behind her. “Schumer [knew] we’d rip them down,” says Delahunt.