Presented by Emerchant.

Good morning, Playbookers. I'm Roguminovalin.

How J.D. Vance made Demp Friends on Rail Safety. Plus, does CPAC matter in 2023?

Here are the big things we're watching on Thursday, March 2nd.

Politico's, Burgess Everett, has a story up in this morning's playbook, chatting with Senator J.D. Vance

and his entry into bipartisanship.

As Burgess writes, the first term senator still has an undeniably hard edge to his conservatism.

Vance opposes continued Ukraine aid, attacks Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

for his derailment response, is one of just five Senate Republicans backing former President

Donald Trump's third presidential campaign and still won't say whether he supported

Mitch McConnell as a Republican leader.

So, don't expect him to charge into the Senate's famed to bipartisan gangs.

He's still skeptical of bipartisanship for its own sake, quipping in an interview in his

temporary basement office this week that the Iraq war was bipartisan and it was a fucking disaster.

Even so, the 38-year-old quickly built an intriguing dynamic with Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown,

a flinty 70-year-old who needs support from some of Vance's voters next November to win his own tough re-election battle.

A notable quotable from Vance, I certainly came in expecting the political environment to be so partisan that it would

be harder to get anything done.

In reality, so long as you're not being a total jerk about it, I think it's possible to do things.

Way back in 2015, a member of Team Playbook was at a Republican presidential primary debate

when they ran into Matt and Mercedes Schlapp. Naturally, that conversation turned to Donald

Trump. The Schlapps were a power couple in Republican politics who met in the George

...