I need to give this some thought ~ Ted Cruz and Darrell Issa are probably at the top of my list of those I would refuse to talk with ~ but I'm curious who others would enjoy talking with ~ Sooz

Ask a Congressperson
by BooMan
Sat Dec 20th, 2014 at 10:31:33 AM EST

Just as a thought experiment, imagine that I offered you the opportunity to sit down with a handful of congress members and have an in depth conversation about world events and foreign policy. Who would you choose to invite to your chat?

My assumption here is that you would not take this as a chance to convince anyone to change their mind about anything, but rather you would be doing this because you sincerely wanted to learn.

As an example of a recently departed member of Congress, I would find it exciting to sit down with Dick Lugar and just talk about things. I could pick his brain for hours without getting bored.

But probably among the last people I'd be excited to talk to are Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

On a superficial level, Rand Paul is interesting simply because he doesn't parrot some party line. But his knowledge of and sophistication about world events and foreign affairs is at such a low level that almost any Ivy League undergraduate would make for more compelling conversation.

And Rubio is just a politician, through and through. His ideas are not his own. They are either learned from biased self-interested sources or they are for sale.

So, who would you want to talk to?

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/12/20/103133/18

Al Franken or Bernie Sanders

John Boehner. Just to put one proposition to him and then count how many absolutely firm positions he could take on it.

Good choices ~ I met Al Franken several years before he first ran for senator when he was the keynote speaker at my firm's annual partners' meeting ~ he was still a working comedian then, and gave what the majority of us rated a "brilliant speech" on what he believed were the successes and the pratfalls in the US government and the US legal system ~ there is no question he is a true progressive ~

Bernie Sanders is an interesting guy, but I'm thinking he is unfairly pre-judged and dismissed because he calls himself a socialist [which still carries too many bad connotations with too many here] ~ if he somehow managed to get the potus nomination, I would vote for him ~ but I don't see that happening ~

Sooz

My ex and I met Sanders (briefly) some 30 years ago when he was Mayor of Burlington. I found him very interesting then.