It’s been a rough year for vulnerable Rep. Erik Paulsen and members of the Republican do-nothing Congress – just look at the front-page of Rep. Paulsen’s local paper calling him “the Cowardly Lion.” Rather than face his Party’s lack of legislative accomplishments, Rep. Paulsen is dodging his constituents and refusing to show face after voting to strip away healthcare from his constituents.
His disappearing act, coupled with his record of supporting Paul Ryan’s deeply unpopular agenda (who is underwater himself), is starting to chip away at Rep. Paulsen’s “nice guy” façade as his constituents voice their dissatisfaction, all of which spells trouble for his re-election prospects in 2018.
Dems chasing elusive 3rd District seat differ in approach | MPR
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/10/23/dems-chasing-elusive-3rd-district-seat-differ-in-approach
John and Susan Prin are the kind of voters Democrats will need to win over next year if they are to break a 29-election losing streak in Minnesota’s suburban 3rd Congressional District.
The Eden Prairie couple has cast past votes for Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen. The self-declared independents say they appreciated his work on policy related to pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease that claimed their daughter this year at age 42.
“He fought for her health care,” Susan Prin said. “But I’m seeing a different Erik Paulsen now, and that’s really sad.”
She has soured on Paulsen, partly because she doesn’t think he’s separated himself enough from President Trump and his agenda. Her husband shares the perception.
“All this business of shaking hands with people across the aisle, it’s just not there anymore,” John Prin said.
“Or just shaking hands with people in his district,” Susan Prin added.
WAMU A1: Can The Democrats Get It Together?
https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2017-10-24/can-the-democrats-get-it-together/112486/@00:00
MPR Political reporter Brian Bakst discusses constituent dissatisfaction with Rep. Erik Paulsen, who refuses to hold town halls: “He’s been invisible here… ” says a Paulsen constituent.
The Cowardly Lion: Minnesota needs a hero. It has Erik Paulsen instead. | City Pages
http://www.citypages.com/news/the-cowardly-lion-minnesota-needs-a-hero-it-has-erik-paulsen-instead/450307123
During an interview on Almanac in March, Paulsen spoke of how he’s “accessible” and “a good listener.” That schtick appears to be wearing thin.
He hasn’t held an in-person public town hall meeting in six years, preferring to hold them by phone, where he can pick guests and screen questions.
But it was his vote to repeal Obamacare that lay bare the schism between his Minnesota persona and his D.C. record. The bill would have thrown 24 million people off the insured rolls, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis, while delivering unexplained tax breaks solely to the wealthy. It was a move that threatened many of his constituents’ basic survival.
Wayzata resident Lynne Gehling was a fan of Ramstad. She twice voted for Paulsen, assuming he was cut from the same cloth. These days, the 62-year-old retiree is a semi-regular protester outside the congressman’s Eden Prairie office.
After hearing word that Paulsen might not be all he seemed, she began paying closer attention. His move to defund Planned Parenthood raised her ire. So did Paulsen’s silence over Trump’s Muslim travel ban. But his Obamacare vote would prompt multiple trips to Eden Prairie.
The Republican bill didn’t just hammer poor Americans. It allowed insurers to charge people 64 and older five times what they billed younger people. Then there were the loopholes allowing insurers to skirt coverage for pre-existing conditions like breast cancer and diabetes.
Meanwhile, calls to Paulsen’s office carried the vibe of D.C. deception, rather than Middle America concern.
“When you talk to his office it’s so frustrating,” Gehling says. “When you ask them, ‘What’s his opinion?’ or what his stand on a policy would be, they say, ‘Well, we don’t know. We haven’t spoken to him.’”
When she called right before the Obamacare vote, “I was told by his office, ‘He hasn’t read the bill. We don’t know how he’s going to vote.’ I could’ve told you right then and there how he was going to vote, but they kept denying it.”
Not long ago Gehling counted herself a Paulsen ally, believing he stood for something and had the grit to own his positions, whether she agreed with him or not. Today, she sees a cowardly lion.
“I look at him as someone who’s not doing very much and just towing the party line,” she says. “His big thing is working across the aisle against sex trafficking. I mean, who’s not going to be for that? …I’ve never seen him stand up for anything.”
Former statehouse colleague Hausman puts it more succinctly: “I would say he’s someone who’s lacking courage.”
Steve Schewe, 60, concurs. The Eden Prairie business consultant has been married for 37 years and has three grown kids. He considers himself politically agnostic, voting instead on the content of one’s character.
It’s one thing to have a party-line acolyte in normal times, he says, “but these are not normal times. These times call for a greater moral and political courage than he has shown.”
In March, Schewe arrived on Capitol Hill, among a handful of people from NoLabels.org, a group that advocates bipartisan problem solving.
Paulsen’s office was decked out with exhibits from Minnesota businesses and photos of himself at sporting events. The conference room featured a mounted Wenonah canoe and a freezer stocked with Schwan’s ice cream. The intent was obvious, according to Schewe. Theirs was a congressman Minnesota-proud—and Minnesota-business prouder.
Schewe was optimistic heading into the meeting. He believed they could talk Paulsen into participating in a public town hall.
“He does a lot of things that are pretty much happy talk,” Schewe says. “Erik Paulsen will go to schools and visit companies, controlled-access type meetings. He showed up unannounced at Cub Foods in late August and stayed for 10 minutes. We thought we could convince him that a civilly staged town hall would be beneficial.” The congressman listened in earnest. “He said he’d consider it,” says Schewe. “But it was like he was trying to figure out a way to brush us off…. Walking out of Erik Paulsen’s office, you don’t get the sense something’s going to happen.”
Six months later, there’s been no town hall.
Schewe, who’s twice voted for Paulsen, understands the fear. In the age of Trump, town halls have often turned into bloodlettings by bitter constituents. After Republicans finally played their cards of health care, the rage only magnified.
“I have some compassion for the risk that they take when they’re out in public, especially in less secured situations,” Schewe says. “I also think that’s part of the job.”
The smart money says Paulsen won’t get Schewe’s vote next year. It’s a matter of integrity.
“The thing that really got my goat a bit was the health care vote,” says Schewe. “He’s been a longtime champion of fiscal responsibility, yet the GOP health plan was really destroying the added coverage that had been in place under the Affordable Care Act, in return for a big tax cut for wealthy people. The system is underfunded, so why would you return the money to people who don’t need it? It didn’t make any sense.”
Yes it does, argues Minnetonka resident Karl Bunday—at least within the peculiar forces of self-interest.
The math teacher used to back the congressman’s bullish views on trade. No longer. Bunday is married to a Taiwanese woman. The couple has four kids. Paulsen’s views on immigration have Bunday convinced his wife and children are no longer welcome here.
“He votes in lockstep with his party that has become more and more about anti-immigrant rhetoric. He hasn’t offered any general resistance to this, to this notion that anyone who doesn’t speak English as their first language like my wife isn’t welcome in this country.”