Local politics again

The better part of my afternoon was spent with about 40 progressives like myself meeting with the Congressional Representative from the 18th District of California. We've been working on scheduling since around Thanksgiving and it finally came together.

Dennis Cardoza is an anomaly; a Democrat in one of the most Republican areas (San Joaquin valley) of the state. He had served in the State Legislature and ran for the Congressional seat after it became obvious Gary Condit would not be reelected. He's the leader of the "blue dogs"; a conservative on fiscal matters and moderate/liberal on social issues. We disagree from time to time but I know there is just so much he can do and keep his seat. We have rabid conservatives to either side of this District and we can't afford to lose one of the few voices of reason we have.

The meeting was supposed to last an hour and we came armed with a list of questions which had been given to his staff in advance. No one was interested in sandbagging him. The hour went by, we'd gotten through about half the questions and another group needed the room. He had his staff find us another room and the meeting went on for another hour.

The issues aren't the issue; the face to face communication was. We found ourselves in agreement on many concerns. I'm grateful for that, but even if that hadn't been the case, it would have been time well spent.

We listened to each other and at the end of the two hours I felt we had begun to understand each other. I could be cynical and say of course he met with us, we represent a sizable voting bloc. I chose to leave the cynicism at home. He's done a good job for the District overall.

We were just one small group in one Congressional District. We all write letters, we all make phone calls, and we keep on swimming upstream. We may succeed; we may not, but at least we'll know we did everything we could.