I posted that I was part of a delegation of community leaders from Pennsylvania who were at the White House last Friday for a policy briefing. I’ll be posting a followup talking about the experience over the next few days.  Before leaving Pittsburgh, I had received a template press release from Keystone Profgress, the organization which had facilitated the trip, so I sent it out to the papers and also to the two local public radio stations.

Then, on Friday, I received a call from Essential Public Radio, and they did a brief phone interview, which was aired this morning, and posted to their website. I also got a call, inviting me to be on Essential Pittsburgh, their daily local show tomorrow from noon to about 12:30PM to talk about the trip to the White House.

It is so easy to feel separated fron what goes on in Washington! The news filled with soundbites and political rhetoric, can be exhausting and overwhelming at times. Do we (you and me and all the other regular folks out here) really matter? Trips like this one remind me of just how much all of us, the constituents, really do matter, and it is fun to hear from mid level and high level White House staff about what is happening in terms of policy.

Policy. Doesn’t sound all that exciting, but in another regard it is terribly so! Policy changes and the nitty grtitty of governance is what we really send people to Washington to do for us! It is liberating to be reminded that they are doing it, and there is more to
Washington than soundbites and political rhetoric.