I met Jim Matheson

It was a Tuesday.

I sat there in a white plastic chair shivering in the Great Room of the Barlow Center. I did have on a pink cardigan, but every time I best the air conditioning machine by wearing appropriate clothing it has to show me up and turn itself a few degrees colder.

But nevermind, I looked around the crowded room. You could tell most people were students and you could tell most people were LDS. The few who didn't fit the mold were probably also people of religion, come to hear a Congressman discuss how his faith affects his public service.

The Congressman was late, as he was voting in the Capitol building moments before arriving.

He flashed a 100-watt, billboard-quality smile at everyone in the room and sat down in the front.

After a prayer, song, intro etc, the Congressman gave about a 20-minute address on the importance of giving back to the community, in whatever capacity possible.

He opened it up for questions. Within five seconds, someone asked him about the role of government in regards to health care. Later on, he would get questions about social issues (someone essentially asked how he could be a democrat and reconcile himself with the Church), gerrymandering, more health care, and the sensational partisanship that pervades elections. Someone even gave him a chance to publicly criticize the Obama administration. (He didn't take it.)

Being a skillful politician, he handled every question well. He answered intelligently, clearly, and with a minimal amount of corny jokes. He avoided the questions he didn't want to answer. He used charming anecdotes to support his points. He gave enlightening responses to the health care questions, expressed his frustration with the extreme talking heads on cable "political" shows, and suggested that we won't see truly moderate candidates (and he feels that most Americans are truly moderate) until state legislatures stop drawing mostly-partisan district lines in order to encourage real competition after the primary.

He seemed to understand that, being a politician, you can't please everyone, and that a lot of the people there walked into the room with their minds made up. He handled even the most provocative questions with grace. As I mentioned before, there were a few bad jokes, but as I've learned, politicians are very good at self-deprecating jokes even when they're yelling ar each other. They wouldn't get anywhere if they lost their marbles every time they disagreed with someone.

After the closing prayer, I aggressively went up to shake his hand and to ask for a picture before anyone else. (And I was the first.)

Being a politician, I knew he would agree.

Note: I didn't feel like this picture was particularly flattering, so I changed it to sepia. Everything looks better in sepia.

At the end of the night, I felt confident that Rep. Matheson was very smart, very articulate, and mostly a good guy.

I hope I can volunteer next fall to help him get re-elected. (Since I can't even vote for him--I'm not in his district!)