Roy Blunt Loses His Senate Status in Switchboard Switchup

Poor Roy Blunt. After crushing his opponent in November, thwarting Democratic dreams of flipping a red seat blue and maybe taking the whole Senate too (remember those days?), the veteran politician ought to be flying high.

Instead, the petite Missouri pol seems to gone incognito — or at least below the radar of the U.S. Capitol's switchboard operators.

For at least a few days now, callers seeking to get through to the offices of Missouri's senators have been presented with two automated choices: They can press 1 for Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester or 2 for Senator Claire McCaskill.

What's missing? An option for Senator Roy Blunt — it's as if Missouri's junior senator had been swept right into the dustbin of history ... which is, of course, not what happened on November 8.


So who is Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester? No such person exists. Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester does, but the Democrat representing Delaware is no relation, and definitely not repping Missouri. In other words: Someone messed up.

Now, if you press one at the auto-prompt, you'll be transferred to Roy Blunt's staff. The connection is right, just not the instructions. Still, the whole thing must be a bit disconcerting for Blunt.

Or is it? With Donald Trump about to take office and Blunt in the awkward position of endorsing him despite pussy-grabs galore (on Trump's part) and four years as president of a Baptist college (on Blunt's), maybe it's nice to lay low for a little while.

Really, it's hard to second-guess the tactics of a guy whose entire family makes its living as lobbyists, yet still coasted to reelection in a year focused on draining the swamp. The switchboard may not know who he is, but we suspect Roy Blunt knows exactly what he's doing.

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