Have You Hugged a Lawmaker Today?

Maine's House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree wants citizens to not be so damn ungrateful, so she wrote to the newspapers insisting that people thank their local and regional legislators.

For some reason, the word 'chutzpah' comes to mind, as do the words 'brown-nosing' and 'self-serving.'

Comments

[tomk]

"When you get a chance, I hope that many of you will thank..." doesn't sound terribly insistent to me. The purpose of the letter seems more to alert folks to the involvement of their local reps in the resolution of the state's attempt to renege on a deal than to complain about constituent's ungratefulness. Hannah's mom was an early COA graduate, and they are both effective and positive politician/activists. I say that to explain my sensitivity a bit, I just don't think the letter, self serving though it is, deserved to be singled out for ridicule. Must be a slow news day.

[Rogier]

tomk:

OK, I was harsh. I guess what really irked me was that Madam Majority Leader didn't just write a simple letter of thanks to the newspaper, praising local lawmakers; no, she had to take that extra step and exhort ordinary citizens to fawn over their legislators' accomplishments. Honest, what do these people want? THEY WORK FOR US. They ought to put their nose to the grindstone and do the job they were elected to do, without whinging that people should give them plaudits and ribbons.

If you finish a great carpentry project, should I write to the paper and encourage total strangers to praise you with back pats and attaboys? If I pen a nice magazine story, are you going to publicly tell Mainers they ought to show their appreciation for me?

Politicians who think they deserve some kind of special treatment, such as being applauded for simply doing their jobs, are contemptible, in my book. Store clerks and truck drivers and veterinarians and chefs and utility workers and executives drag themselves out of bed every morning to put in long days, and I daresay their jobs are often more difficult and stressful than the tasks that our poor representatives in Augusta are trying (and often failing) to complete.

These folks are not royalty. So having a member of the political class imply that we ought to basically crown and anoint her colleagues (and by extension, herself) would be amusing if it didn't speak volumes about politicians' outsized entitlement complex.

[Mad John]

Never hug a politician. It places their hands too close to your wallet.