October 12, 2010

Katie meets her congressman

Yes, Katie got to shake hands with our congressman (Chris Carney) tonight. It was very nice, actually; before he tried to meet me, he bent down and asked her name. She told him "Katie", so he held out his hand and said "Hi, I'm Chris." It made her comfortable enough with the crowd of adult legs to stay through the whole meet-and-greet-and-pep talk at the local Democratic headquarters.

The thing that made the biggest impression on me (other than introducing himself to the kids) was when Carney mentioned his wife, who we all know is undergoing breast cancer treatment. It was clear she and his kids are his number one priority. He said he wants to beat his opponent for a lot of reasons, but the main one is for the charge that he skipped out on important votes in Washington to go home for a few days. In actuality he went home to be with his wife when she had surgery. That kind of accusation really says volumes about his opponent, and made us all feel that it was worth defeating him for that reason alone. Jeez.

On the way home, I got to give Katie a lesson on how democracy works. Cool. And it will be fun to let her punch the ballot for Chris in three weeks.

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