Selena and I Go To Washington!

My wife, Selena, and I had the honor of an audience with Senator John Thune, R-SD this past Wednesday (July 20).  When I had originally asked to speak with him, we were given 30 minutes to speak with him.

With great anticipation, I prepared for the meeting by getting my issues together that I wanted to address:  Post 9-11 GI Bill, DOMA, and other military related topics.  We drove the 3 1/2 hours to Washington, DC for our meeting at 3:30pm.  We wisely parked outside the city and took the Metro to a stop near his office, putting us in his outer office at 3:20. 

At exactly 3:30, two of his staff came out and got us and we went into a conference room and began to brief them on our issues.  I have dealt with Senate staffers before, so I knew that talking to them was like talking to the Senator himself.  After a few minutes, Senator Thune came in the room.  The first thing I noticed was that he was very tall...and he smiles a lot.  Not a fake, politician smile, his comes across as genuine.

I quickly rehashed my first topic and he asked questions and we continued.  He showed genuine interest and never took his eyes off us as we spoke to him and shared our thoughts and concerns.  At one point, his secretary entered the room and, after excusing herself for the interruption, told him he had a phone call.  Without missing a beat or moving his eyes from us, he dismissed her with an "I'll be there in a minute".  Not once did he lose focus on the people he was there to talk to.  At that moment, no matter who was on that phone, we were what was important to him.  It really made us feel good, that he understood that we had traveled a long way to see him and we deserved his full attention.

About five minutes later, he said he better go, but not until after some pictures.  He was such a good person to talk to.  It was like sitting down with one of my brothers and telling him about my concerns.   We asked him to continue to keep up the pro-life fight to which he responded, and I quote, "That's a no-brainer".  After thanking him again, he left us to his staffer again who let us expand on our thoughts. 

We left that meeting floating on air with a feeling that our Senator had made us feel so important to his job and that he believed what we were saying was important.  I would love to see Senator Thune run for President someday.  I can guarantee him at least two votes.