but chris coons himself, chris coons himself may be a good marker of something else that's going on in washington that's not really getting very much attention even as the big quake is. the senate seat that chris coons holds was an open seat when he ran for it, it was vice president biden's seat in delaware. the election to fill the seat was november 2010. november 2010 was a deep, deep, deep red election day, right? republicans just ran the board last november, they won almost everything in 2010. and even though delaware is a pretty blue state, republicans expected to be able to win that biden seat too, because they thought they had a candidate who could not have been more perfect for the job, long time centrist republican congressman mike cassel, what happened, mike cassel got defeated by a tea party-backed challenger named christine o'donnell, who is not a witch, and we all know how that worked out. >> without objection, the senate will come to order. the clerk will read a communication to the senate. >> senator chris coons, democrat of delaware, thank you, christine o'donnell. the

and i talk about 24 in the book in one of the pictures, talk about how my democratic opponent, chris coons, everybody asked him -- the winner of the election served in the lame duck session because you're sworn in to immediately fill the rest of the term vacated by joe biden, so my opponent, you know, had literally no less than five public positions on how he would vote on extending the bush tax cuts. there were five public positions so depending on the audience, that's the position he took. i tried to get it out there, but, of course, i say it in rooms like this, but it's never picked up by the media. well, i was on "good morning, america" one morning, and as i was leaving 20 go do the next campaign event, you know, they had chris coons on immediately after me, and george says, you know, your o poem accuses you of having no less than five positions on the tax cuts. tell me how you would vote in he said, thank you george for allowing the opportunity. i'll be accused of misquoting him, but, you know, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to set the record straight. my position on the ta

i don't know if that's ever happened before but they all had to evacuate the building and chris coons scary and he was outside and felt the ground move very far in either direction, and he said although, i will tell you, living in washington, d.c., and many of our friends in new york will feel the same way, when he found out it was an earthquake he was actually relieved and my colleagues asked him why, and he said "we are approaching the anniversary of 9/11, we do live in washington, d.c., and i do work in the u.s. capitol," so all things considered he said he was okay. so he was ready to get back to work. i can assure you that. >> i understand, you take everything very, very, very seriously these days especially in our nation's capital. kate baldwin, the pentagon, congressional buildings evacuated. is it clear everyone is back at work? >> reporter: it seems it's happening building by building. traffic seems to be snarled here in the capital but the sense is i've been out here since it happened, i ran the stairs downstairs eight flights of stairs. people seem to be settling down and a

we bring in chris coons of tyler mathisen. >>> also, emanuel cleaver will join us next. >>> first, ans. >>> tropical storm emily is a weak storm, relatively disorganized. the hope is that it will get tore apart by the mountains over haiti and the dominican republic later on tonight. unfortunately for them they'll get a lot of heavy rain. puerto rico is getting drenched this morning, too. here's the forecast path of the storm. it still looks like it has a chance to survive the mountains. if it does, there's warm waters and favorable conditions off the southeast coast. that's not where we want to see it. if it does survive it could become a hurricane somewhere off the southeast coast this upcoming weekend. we'll have to monitor this closely. forecast, finally a cooler day, down to the 80s for the first time in a long time. chance of showers from new york city southward. also the heat, incredible numbers yesterday in the middle of the country. today 109 in dallas, yesterday 112 in tulsa. you'll do it again. there is beautiful weather, the west coast is perfect. from chicago northward to