Lawmakers Tries to Call All of His Constituents

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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June 23, 2011

Lawmakers Tries to Call All of His Constituents

Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) is trying to personally call all 300,000 households in his congressional district, the Washington Post reports.

"Johnson calls from the airport. He calls from the treadmill. Over 10 years, this habit has cost him a vast chunk of his life and left him with little legacy of landmark legislation. But, if nothing else, it has meant he really knows the people in his district."

The bad news: "This year, the Illinois legislature has drawn a new district for Johnson, leaving out a vast number of the people he's been calling. If he gets reelected and wants to keep up the practice, he'll have to start again with hundreds of thousands of strangers."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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June 23, 2011