Between orientation sessions and apartment shopping, he has been back in his district, on "listening tours." At a recent holiday fair in Putnam County, he segued from discussing post-traumatic stress syndrome with a police officer who had been at the World Trade Center to wetlands management with a woman from a conservation group, and stopped to buy a T-shirt with the message "The One with the Most Guitars Wins" for his wife.
Hoppen said that people might underestimate his former partner.
"People may figure he's just a rock star and he lucked out because of the general tide, and they're wrong," Hoppen said.
Raitt said she sees him in the mold of Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator. "Of all the musicians I know that have been activists," she said, "the best suited for the job of actually going to Congress is John."
Browne's take: "A guitar player for Congress, it makes all the sense in the world to me. Musicians organize the world in certain ways. John's idealism comes from the same place his music does. It comes from joy."
Still, the night before his election, Hall said, he and his wife rented the movie The Candidate, starring Robert Redford. "When he wins, he says, 'What do we do now?'" Hall said.
"You get the feeling, the look, the personality, the few catchphrases, the buzzwords, the talking points. But then you have to get down to the complexity of actually having to govern."
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