During the last election, challenger Chip Cravaack said U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar was out of touch. He suggested the incumbent was a carpetbagger. While I didn't always agree with Oberstar, I could always write to him and get a response.
On the flip side, a recent message I sent to Cravaack via a consumer advocacy group returned the following message: "Representative Cravaack will not accept e-mail messages unless they are sent using (a) web form (found at cravaack.house.gov/)." The form on Cravaack's new and improved (?) website would accept only about six lines and then snips the rest. I know this for a fact, as the Web form confirmation showed my message was cut off after about six lines, essentially gutting my message. There's not nearly enough room given for an opinion on anything.
All that said, and considering the News Tribune's July 16 story, "Cravaack's re-election campaign begins; family moves to N.H.," I think Cravaack can now be called a carpetbagger and out of touch.
"Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary," poet, lecturer and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote.
John Masanz
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Grasston, Minn.
