Do You Know Your Representative?

In a I challenged readers to get to know their elected representatives.  Today you have an excellent opportunity to get to know Chris Van Hollen.

Van Hollen has been very successful gaining influence within the Democratic Party and raising his national profile. In the 2010 election cycle he led the Democratic re-election effort on behalf of all house seats and has parlayed that epic sacrifice to become the minority leader of the influential House Appropriations Committee.

On Friday afternoon, Van Hollen faced off with rising Republican star Paul Ryan on the topic of Medicare. Here is a link to the show. 

I don't want to go into the subject matter here. I DO want to challenge you to watch the debate and decide what you think about Van Hollen. 

My opinion, he's highly knowledgable but too often refers to partisan perception of the issues: "the Republican plan does this..." or "we believe that..." By contrast, Ryan sticks to the facts that everyone agrees on:  "Medicare will be insolvent in a little over ten years and something needs to be done today... anything else is kicking the can down the road."

It seems to me that if we choose to do nothing today, the Medicare that is being defended by the establishment - the status quo - becomes little more than a very expensive promise that cannot be kept. I kind of admire a guy - in Washington of all places - who sticks his neck out to lead on this volatile issue by proposing a change in the way we care for our retirees.

That's the kind of leadership I'd like to see coming from MD-8. What do you think?