[Peace-discuss] NYT: Hello, Illinois? Your Congressman Is on the Line

[Carl G. Estabrook]

http://www.prairiestatereport.us/2012/04/24/ill-13th-district-race-looks-like-the-fix-for-clarke-was-in/


On Apr 24, 2012, at 5:33 PM, E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森 wrote:

> Missing from the article is the ironic epilogue that Tim Johnson's  
> vacated seat
> will likely pass to a meretricious political hack appointed by the  
> Republican mafioso.
>
> Highly unlikely that the ideology of the new candidate selected from  
> the Illinois Republican Party will resemble that of Tim Johnson.   
> The Republican party is a independent organization roughly bound by  
> regulations established by the Election Board, an Election Board  
> that is the puppet of the established two parties.  The Republican  
> party is not in any way, shape, or form bound to nor responsive to  
> the voters, as it lies outside the system, where it can select  
> candidates independent of any irritating vox populi.  There is no  
> direct accountablity to voters.
>
> The bait-and-switch of the impending reality check is quite a twist  
> from the fantastic constituent driven process implied by the article.
>
>
> On 04/25/12 4:33, Robert Naiman wrote:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/us/politics/hello-illinois-rep-tim-johnson-is-on-the-line.html
>>
>> April 24, 2012
>> Hello, Illinois? Your Congressman Is on the Line
>> By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
>>
>> WASHINGTON  — In an institution hampered by perpetual uncertainty,
>> there are a few comforting givens on Capitol Hill.
>>
>> Bean soup is always on the Senate cafeteria menu.  Reporters stand
>> unceasingly idle behind a string of red velvet ropes, waiting to  
>> shove
>> a recorder in the face of a senator departing the floor.
>>
>> And Representative Tim Johnson, Republican of Illinois, perpetually
>> paces the Capitol hallways, a cellphone pressed to his ear as he  
>> talks
>> to constituents, whom he calls all day long, one by one, just to say
>> hello.
>>
>> He calls them as he walks to go vote, plowing through the Longworth
>> House Office Building, then traversing the Capitol Rotunda and  
>> zooming
>> beyond his colleagues, a phone pressed tightly to his right ear as if
>> it grew there.
>>
>> He calls them as he wanders through his district’s shopping malls  
>> and
>> the parks near the Capitol, his staff chasing alongside with large
>> binders, a mobile virtual office.
>>
>> He calls them from the treadmill at the members’ gym. “I can  
>> remember
>> several occasions in the House gym where we started out on treadmills
>> or exercise bikes at the same time, and both got in pretty healthy
>> workouts,” said Representative Ron Paul of Texas. “There was one  
>> big
>> difference: As we worked out next to each other, I read the paper and
>> watched the news. Tim had a call list he dialed through and talked to
>> dozens of constituents.”
>>
>> He calls them so often that most of his colleagues have never seen  
>> him
>> without a cellphone, except when he canters to the House floor to
>> vote.
>>
>> Mr. Johnson —   a willowy figure, so kept by the combination of
>> constant motion and a diet consisting largely of hot tea and  
>> granola —
>> will soon be  a Capitol Hill fixture no more. Elected in 2000, Mr.
>> Johnson abruptly announced after winning his primary that he would
>> retire at the end of the year, citing, among other things, a  
>> “grossly
>> gerrymandered Congressional map” in which “two-thirds of the  
>> voters
>> have never been represented by me.”
>>
>> No one likes to contend with new constituents — Representative  
>> Barney
>> Frank of Massachusetts said redistricting was one of his motivations
>> to retire — but Mr. Johnson, 65, was not simply nervous about
>> appealing to new voters. He was worried about a whole new set of  
>> first
>> phone dates.
>>
>> Mr. Johnson,  a thrice-divorced father of nine, calls roughly 4,000  
>> of
>> his 700,000 constituents each year, one by one by one.  “I am  
>> almost
>> like a dinosaur,” said Mr. Johnson, who would agree to be  
>> interviewed
>> only by, yes, phone. “I think people think I am unique,” he  
>> added,
>> clearly embracing the notion of understatement. “My style makes you
>> sufficiently out of the mainstream and people can wonder how  
>> effective
>> you are.”
>>
>> He cuts a  slightly disheveled swath through the Capitol at all  
>> hours,
>> his calling often cited by colleagues as his chief accomplishment
>> after a decade of service here.  “Tim had his finger on the pulse  
>> of
>> his district,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in an e-mail, “and  
>> always
>> reminded members that at the heart of every democracy are
>> representatives who will listen first, learn, and then lead.”
>>
>> Mr. Johnson said his calling habits grew out of his many years in the
>> Illinois state legislature. “I came to the conclusion that the  
>> problem
>> with government is that they were too out of touch with people and  
>> had
>> very little individual relationships,” he said.
>>
>> His political passions were inherited from his parents, he said,  
>> “kind
>> of the way some families are farmers.” His father’s family were
>> Southern Democrats involved with the Truman campaign, and his mother
>> came from “strong Republicans from Central Illinois.”
>>
>> > From that sprung Mr. Johnson, a lifelong Republican who first  
>> served
>> on the City Council in Urbana, Ill. He has one of the most  
>> independent
>> records in the House, with a roughly 50 percent positive rating on  
>> his
>> votes from liberal and conservative groups alike. Republican House
>> leaders never quite know which way Mr. Johnson will go on any number
>> of matters — he was against them on a payroll tax holiday and  
>> opposed
>> a troop presence in Afghanistan.
>>
>> Mr. Johnson has attributes that most people do not see, said
>> Representative Daniel Lipinski, a moderate Democrat from Mr.  
>> Johnson’s
>> home state.  “I always appreciated how he literally marches to the
>> beat of his own drummer,” Mr. Lipinski said, recalling his  
>> colleague’s
>> passionate questioning of witnesses as a guest in a 2008 Science and
>> Technology Committee hearing that always stuck with him, and his very
>> occasional floor speeches, like one opposing a Republican tort reform
>> bill.
>>
>> “He rarely speaks on the floor, but when he would speak, he was
>> really, really good,” he said. “I think most members never  
>> really saw
>> it.”
>>
>> Mr. Johnson said he is happy to be known as the caller, mostly  
>> because
>> his constituents so appreciate hearing from him and asking him to
>> address their problems. “No one person stands out more than  
>> another,”
>> he said. “In most cases they were happy,  in a few cases tearful, I
>> guess at the thought that a congressman would talk to an individual
>> from a small town in Central Illinois.  And in a few cases it’s  
>> angry
>> about my votes. Hopefully it has been beneficial to the system.”
>>
>> For now, he is hanging up. “The truth is, it’s missed baseball  
>> games,
>> missed weddings and a couple specific situations that arose very
>> recently with my family,” he said, explaining his desire to return  
>> to
>> private life at the end of the year, hoping he left his impression
>> along the marbled halls. “I want people to remember that I was a  
>> voice
>> of common sense and real people living in the real world.”
>>
>>
>>
>