When Joe Biden stepped to the lectern in the shadow of the Brent Spence Bridge in northern Kentucky this month, he couldn't stop showering praise on the state's senior Republican senator, who had fought to repair the ramshackle span for decades.
It was quite a contrast to the clipped introduction delivered just a few minutes earlier by that senator, Mitch McConnell, who referenced Biden only in noting that the president had signed the bill to finally fix the aging bridge.
