At a recent Polar Plunge fundraising event in Eden Prairie, I was standing next to a very dear friend when Congressman Erik Paulsen approached the launching pad. My friend clapped loudly, and said something akin to “He’s a good man.” I’ve never met Mr. Paulsen, but my friend has, so I’m inclined to trust his judgement.
What I struggle with is reconciling my friend holding Mr. Paulsen in high regard to two distinctive but perhaps related observations. One s a well-documented record of Mr. Paulsen not conducting face-to-face, on-the-record town hall meetings with his constituents. The other is a dearth of public commentary regarding the personal conduct of the current president of the United States.
Politics aside, I expect that the elected congressman representing Minnesota’s Third Congressional District to hold the president to the highest ethical standards and demand integrity from the person elected into this position of power.
Unless I’m one of the hand-picked people invited to attend one of Mr. Paulsen’s “Town Call” meetings, I seemingly don’t have the ability to ask questions to understand the reasons that drive Mr. Paulsen’s reluctance to hold himself accountable to the people he currently represents and the president accountable to all Americans. In the absence of this understanding, I’m reduced to imaging what these reasons cold be. It stands to reason that Mr. Paulsen is aware of criticisms regarding his Town Calls, and of feedback from other constituents within his district and across the nation expressing their frustration and confusion regarding the president’s behavior.
What concerns me is that Mr. Paulsen is aware of these criticisms and growing frustrations and has calculated that conducting face-to-face meetings and publicly holding the president accountable for his actions poses a greater risk to his chances of being re-elected than by standing up for himself, his constituents, and his countrymen.
It may come down to his: either Mr. Paulsen holds himself accountable to his constituents, or the voters in Minnesota’s Third District will hold him accountable on Election Day.
Chuck Whittemore, Eden Prairie
Eden Prairie Sun Current, April 5, 2018