Once upon a time, Minnesota had a congressional delegation member who was one of the most incredibly polarizing figures in state history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This person – who came to politics relatively late in life – never minced words, campaigning from the heart with a platform based on solidly, articulately-held beliefs.\u00a0 The Congressperson was an activist before getting into politics, and even then <\/em>had been a polarizing figure, who had either rabid supporters or fervid enemies.\u00a0 Nothing changed on the campaign trail…<\/p>\n …or, for that matter, in Washington, where the Congressperson got into an awkward<\/a> scene<\/a> with President Bush that made the detractors titter with glee.\u00a0 The Congressperson was not afraid to be on the “wrong” side of issues – indeed, to buck the tide in voting on the basis of beliefs that, for the Congressperson, trumped politics.<\/p>\n Which drew admirers – on both sides of the aisle, at least from fellow legislators who respected commitment to principle.\u00a0 Naturally, it also drew detractors – people who detested commitment to principles who were not their own.\u00a0 The Congressperson was a lighting rod for media figures who found boundless “red meat” in the Congressperson’s tendency to put the heart on the sleeve.<\/p>\n These beliefs and principles were sure and steady enough to prevent excessive insecurity even when the Congressperson, shooting from the hip, would say things that’d draw ridicule from enemies (and the odd groan from more politically-sensitive, less issue-and-principle-driven supporters).\u00a0 The tendency to shoot from the hip – to put principle first and political expediency somewhere down the list – was a headache to orthodox politicians, and material on the hoof for the detractors.<\/p>\n It also made politics interesting for the casual observer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once upon a time, Minnesota had a congressional delegation member who was one of the most incredibly polarizing figures in state history.\u00a0 This person – who came to politics relatively late in life – never minced words, campaigning from the heart with a platform based on solidly, articulately-held beliefs.\u00a0 The Congressperson was an activist before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,2,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","category-minnesota-politics","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}