When Ron Wyden says he’s the “designated driver” for the Senate, he means he sees himself as the unimpaired one at the wheel as others dream of running for president.
It also means he was free to write the book he wanted, he says, not the book that would serve some future bid.
The result is “It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change,” published earlier this month.
Instead of the typical congressional memoir — which, as Wyden defines it, involves bragging about your accomplishments, noting that “many people” have urged you to run and then teasing your presidential exploratory committee — his is a meditation on the Yiddish word that doubles as a handbook for bolder action.
“I wanted to write something that would be a more useful kind of tool to people,” says the Oregon Democrat, whose “12 rules of chutzpah” range from playing the long game to embracing unscripted moments.
The ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is no stranger to the literary world. His father was a prolific journalist who fled Nazi Germany as a child, and his wife, Nancy Bass Wyden, owns the iconic Strand Book Store in Manhattan, where the senator kicked off his ongoing book tour.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Q: When you were writing this, did you think there was a possibility you would be going on a book tour just as Donald Trump was inaugurated again as president?
A: I certainly was not oblivious to the fact that there was a presidential race going on, but I think the thesis of my book — that this country needs a real injection of chutzpah, of enthusiasm, grit and willingness to break new ground for the challenges ahead — fit, to me, however things came out.
Q: What’s the reaction been? What’s the audience like, the people who show up at a book event?
A: It was terrific at the Strand. Nancy said it was the biggest house she could remember. Ezra Klein posed the questions, and I always like to say I knew Ezra before he was famous, but it was standing room only and it was a terrific crowd. We’ve been finding ways to get to other venues, and doing it with the congressional schedule right now is sort of sleep deprivation 101.
Q: You’ve been on the Senate Intelligence panel for 24 years now, so I was surprised to read that you weren’t so sure at first.
A: I felt that I had been in training for the Finance Committee all through my time in public service, working on senior issues and economics and trade and big, major domestic issues. And [Senate Democratic leader] Tom Daschle had been a close friend. He and I wrote the Medigap law, the first tough law on health insurance to stop rip-offs of seniors. He knew I was very interested and was hopeful he could get me on at that time, but he realized there were no women on the committee and called me up and said he was very sorry he couldn’t do it, and that he would continue to look for opportunities in the future.
And then he called back a little bit later and said, “Well, we have an opening on the Intelligence Committee.” As I said in the book, I was kind of dubious. I was new to the Senate, and we were always told to go home and get out, be available to people, and now all of a sudden I’d be cloistered in the Intelligence Committee.
But I thought about my dad, and I thought about him talking about things like the Bay of Pigs, and essentially how the military brass convinced John F. Kennedy to try to land a boat where no boat had ever landed. As you know, I’m a journalist kid. My dad wrote historical nonfiction, and next to me right now is his book about the Bay of Pigs. Fidel Castro said, “Peter Wyden knows more about it than we do.” So I thought this would be a good way to serve, and I feel very lucky.
Q: You landed on the Finance panel eventually, and rose to become chairman and now ranking member. You write that you weren’t expecting to get the gavel when you did.
A: In fact, when Max Baucus retired, I thought it would inevitably be going to Jay Rockefeller. I was actually on my way walking to his office to congratulate him on being our new chair, and to say how much I was looking forward to working with him, when I heard this pounding of feet behind me. I turned around and looked, and there was a huge pack of people out in back of me, and they were all shouting, “Congratulations, Mr. Chairman.”
Sen. Rockefeller had put out a news release saying, you know, Ron is a good guy and very energetic and he’ll be a great chair, and I’m going to finish up my work on the Commerce Committee.
Q: I’ll close with a question about C-SPAN. I saw you recently signed a letter with Republican Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska urging streaming services to carry it.
A: I want to increase streaming opportunities. You know, it’s very clear that there’s been tremendous change in communications and the nature of how people get their information. I think streaming is where it’s at, and I think there’s a way to do this in a very affordable kind of fashion. This is another bipartisan approach that I’ll take, [trying to] find better use of technology and expand access to citizens for how they get their news.
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