I just left messages for both of my senators - ask me anything

[KitchenWitch]

[gizmo1979]

1. And they would be?

what did you ask?

[KitchenWitch]

3. My senators are...

Mark Dayton D-MN
Norm Coleman R-MN

I left the message for Senator Dayton to filibuster Alito.
For Coleman, to vote no.

[Fleshdancer]

5. I had the pleasure of voting for Dayton....

and then the heartache of losing Wellstone and nightmare of dealing with Coleman. :grr: Now I'm back in TX and have the same attitude as GOPisEvil.

So here's my question: Who do you think will respond first? Dayton or Coleman?

[KitchenWitch]

8. Dayton - of course

Coleman will respond, but later and with some smarmy excuse for why he is voting yes because he is Bush's lapdog.

[gizmo1979]

6. Is coleman the one that

Al franken hates?

[KitchenWitch]

9. That be the one!

Norm Coleman is a carpetbagging, turncoating, and worst kind of opportunist. Do not get me started on singing his "praises".

[GOPisEvil]

2. I can't remember the last time I communicated with mine.

What's the point? I have Kay Bailey (Breck Girl) Hutchison and John (Box Turtle) Cornyn. :puke::puke:

[KitchenWitch]

4. Mine have been getting regular emails from me

Even though one of mine is a worthless POS and my opinions fall on deaf ears. At least I am expressing myself.

I am so sorry about your senators!

[xmas74]

17. Could be worse.

I have not one but two lapdogs. I have Talent and Bond. Both suck and I'm afraid that, if we don't get rid of Talent this year, he will be a Senator for Life.

[huskerlaw]

7. One of mine ROCKS!

and the other...well...meh.

Far better than what I moved away from at any rate.

What kind of reaction did you get?

[KitchenWitch]

10. Nothing yet

One of mine is also excellent. The other one is one of the worst. I have Mark Dayton on the good side and Norm Coleman on the bad side.

Talk about schizoid politics.

At least both of yours are Democrats even if Feinstein is a DINO.

[huskerlaw]

12. No kidding

I came from the land of Ben "DINO-in-Chief" Nelson and Chuck "I'm running in '08 so I'm tryin' to look moderate" Hagel.

Boxer and DiFi are a vast improvement. ;)

[leftstreet]

11. Do get form letter responses?

That's what I get from both of mine.

50,000 word essays thanking me for (emailing, writing, calling) with several paragraphs about the seriousness of whatever serious issue they're soon to make a serious decision about.

[KitchenWitch]

14. I have gotten form letters

but I have also gotten letters that addressed the issues I was concerned about. I got some great emails back from both my senators and my representative regarding the NSA wiretaps.

[Maine Mary]

13. Why? Only their "people" read the stuff.

If it's a big enough issue in their district, the subject matter will collectively call attention to itself.

Otherwise (and I mean no offense) your letter will probably not make it very far unless it directly affects people in your district. In other words , status quo tends to be the thing with national politicians these days unless their hometown screams.

[KitchenWitch]

15. That may be true

However, if we all believe that and never write, they will never get a chance to hear what we have to say. If more of us wrote, called and emailed our elected officials, there would be more of a chance that they would listen to what we said.

Just my $0.02 (adjusted for inflation).

[Maine Mary]

16. You are totally right

But how you do it is the important thing, Say for example you want federal money for a homeless shelter in your community... Sen X and Congressman Y won't even know about it unless his letter readers say "hey there is a common thread here. 452 people in this community are all saying the same thing"! Thus concluding-this must be important.

I know it sounds awful but that's the way it works. Think of it on a smaller scale: I had 8k constituents. These are small towns and I've been to everyone's houses. They feel they know me. I'd get calls that'd try to bring me into "Hatfield and McCoy"- type fights.... or try to get me to legislate dumb stuff like making people wear hats or de-regulate hunting. One time at about 1:15 am I got a call from some guy in Bingham (15 miles away) who asked me if I could come pick him up from the Moose Alley Inn because he was too drunk to drive. :wtf: But if 15 people from the same community complain about the same thing, I'm more likely to look into it.

DON'T stop writing. But perhaps you can inspire some friends to do so as well. And no mass mailings of the same wording. Legislators tend to throw those away.

Good Luck and God Bless

[tigereye]

18. Santorum and Specter

here. At least Specter believes in choice, but it's hard to say about the Alito nomination. I find it interesting that many Dem Senators felt ok about Roberts ( whose first vote lands him squarely between Scalito and Thomas!) while Alito makes them more nervous. Both Roberts and Alito seem to have been cut from the same cloth.

Santorum also sends me smarmy letters when I take him to task for his hypocrisy.