While viewing today’s dreary stagnation on Capitol Hill, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the two parties have assumed a kind of role reversal. Where the House Republicans have at times verged on youthful chaos, the Democrats have settled into a comparatively humdrum corporate hierarchy dominated by septuagenarians. Early in 2011, Republican House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy had that particular ironic development in mind when he approached Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland congressman and rising Democratic star, on the House floor and offered him some free advice on how to get ahead. “You’re never going to be in play to win the majority as long as you keep your old leadership. I’m not worried about you guys ’til the day I see one of you start a Young Guns program,” McCarthy told him, referring to the GOP’s youth recruitment drive. “Whoever does that is gonna be the next leader of your party. But someone has to hold the flag and charge the hill. And he’ll need someone behind him so, in case he gets shot, the other guy can grab the flag.”

Van Hollen smiled and said nothing—in effect, saying, Don’t worry about me—I’ll be just fine. And the last two years have in fact been career-makers for him. From the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations to early January’s fiscal cliff agreement to the latest sequestration wrangles, Van Hollen has emerged as the Democrats’ leading budgetary strategist on Capitol Hill. He understands the thinking of his friendly Republican adversary on the House Budget Committee, Chairman Paul Ryan, better than anyone, which made Van Hollen the logical choice to play Ryan during Joe Biden’s prep sessions for last year’s vice presidential debate. (“There are very few times you get to be that relentless on the V.P. and be thanked for it,” he says.) Along the way, he has become Biden’s—and by extension the White House’s—most trusted interpreter of the House’s shifting political crosscurrents. (“Biden doesn’t know the House that well,” one of the veep’s senior aides told me, adding, “Van Hollen’s a guy who’s in the middle of the most important stuff up there, so he’s helped to broaden Biden’s understanding of what’s going on.”) The Obama campaign deployed him as a surrogate whenever possible. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has awarded him leadership responsibilities that would invite hostility from his colleagues were he not so highly respected by them as well.

Van Hollen’s considerable regard in the House Democratic caucus comes at a fortuitous moment, when the party seems on the cusp of a generational shift in leadership after a decade of being commandeered by the elderly triumvirate of Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn. Without breaking a sweat, the 54-year-old Chris Van Hollen finds himself in position to become the next Democratic speaker of the House.





“There are different paths to power,” says U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat who has known Van Hollen since both of them served as staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 30 years ago. “Look at the beloved Tip O’Neill. No one would accuse him of being a master of public policy. But he was a master of people. Chris has followed the course of great figures like Sam Nunn, who knew that knowledge is a wellspring of power.”

What’s not clear is where that model will ultimately take Van Hollen—a studious policymaker, but also a shrewd politician, who isn’t likely to remain content as an inside player for long. As a House Republican leader bluntly put it: “You can tell he’s ambitious. He’s going to make a move. But because of that smile on his face, you won’t know it ’til it’s already happened.”