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Notes . . .

 

Sometimes it’s the audience that prompts some reflection.

That’s not a comment on Representative Suzanne Bonamici, from Oregon’s first congressional district, and who held one of her twice-yearly (two series of them annually in the district’s counties) town hall meetings in McMinnville this evening. Her discussion was a straightforward report, from her eye view, of what’s happening in Congress at present. There’s a lot of caution, watching and questioning, by her description, which sounds about right.

When an audience member asked whether Congress is as dysfunctional as it seems to be, she gave her most noteworthy answer: No, probably not. Yes, there are a string of problems, which have gotten a lot of attention. But while the bigfoot stories clump around, lots of smaller-scale activity goes on, to little notice, underneath. She cited a string of measures she’s working on with Republicans, on subjects ranging from job training to tsunami preparation.

That seemed to be of a piece with the audience.

Sometimes, in these town halls, some people get overheated and start stomping out of their proclamations rather than coolly asking questions. Sometimes someone will start to take over the proceedings by going really long-winded, delivering their own speech rather than a concise question.

Didn’t happen tonight. Everyone was courteous and to the point, and emotions were dialed down.

That may or may not be typical, of course. And you can speculate over the various possible reasons for a quieter, calmer town hall. It was a mostly Democratic-friendly audience, by all appearances; was the thinking, in part, that we’ve now just a few months to go to changing the political world in D.C.? (That change might include a subcommittee chair for Bonamici if the House changes partisan control with the next election.)

Whatever the reason, something feels a little different. – rs

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