It’s time to say goodbye to the Senate for Christopher Bond. He’s wrapping up a 24-year career in the Senate in a few days…He’s known ups and downs in that time, telling colleagues, “I’ve worked in all possible party combinations. I’ve been in the majority and in the minority. I’ve been fat and thin. Being thin and in the majority is a whole lot better.”

Bond says it’s important to remember that there is “a lot of real estate” between a political opponent and a true enemy. He encouraged the Senate to work toward more bipartisan efforts although he knows there will be issues that are too divisive for agreement. “But let us never let what cannot be done interfere with what can be done,” he says.

Bond says he learned the value of bipartisanship when he was governor in Missouri, noting that in his second term when he was faced with a legislature in which Democrats controlled seventy percent of the seats, he had a session in which both he and the legislative majority

His final advice: “Work together; play nice.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky praised Bond before the Senator spoke. Senator McCaskill spoke afterward and so did Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota).

McConnell, Bond, McCaskill, Conrad 36:18 mp3