Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) was appointed to fill Vice President Joe Biden's former senate seat after the general election in November
(2 of 2)
Kaufman, who has taught politics at Duke and holds an MBA from Wharton, traces the roots of the collapse to what he calls the "great regulatory meltdown" of the past two decades, a move that was largely endorsed by Summers when he served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. But the Senator has been careful to avoid criticizing Democrats directly. He says he has not talked with the White House--or former boss Biden--about these issues and has only words of praise for Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, a onetime champion of deregulation who wrote the Banking Committee bill. "We just have a very different view," he says.
In his Senate office, Kaufman has stacked the latest books on the financial crisis on his desk, background reading for his regular trips to New York to meet with bankers and analysts. Financial regulation is a crusade he never expected to take on when he accepted his two-year posting. But his 32 years as a Senate aide taught him not to be discouraged by long odds.
"One of the reasons I love this place is, I have been hanging out here since 1973, and you never know what's going to happen," he says. In other words, Kaufman is confident that the last big fight of his short Senate career has only just begun.