Quigley: I don’t play hardball, I play hockey

Congressman-elect Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) may not play hardball like his predecessor, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, but he does play hockey.

“I play hockey,” Quigley told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell if he played “hardball,” or the hard-nosed political tactics for which his predecessor was well-known.

Quigley was elected in last night’s special election in Illinois’s 5th congressional district.

Quigley said he’ll be sleeping on the couch of his congressional office during the weeks before commuting back to Chicago on the weekends, a move he said was partly to preserve his family budget and support his two daughters who are in college.

Quigley also already seems to know his place as a new member of Congress.

“Well, I get sworn in the 21st, but there are some duties I guess I take right away,” he explained. “I have to hire a staff and get my district office going and get briefed on many of the issues we’ll be facing right away, because literally, on the 21st, the speaker swears me in, and then tells me to go way at the back and start voting.”