Coffee with David

At the urging of a regular reader, I set up a meeting with State Senator David Goodman, and we had coffee in Bexley, two blocks from my house and walking distance from his childhood home. We chatted about a number of things, few of them in depth. He's read some of the stuff on Blue Bexley about himself, although he seemed honestly unaware of the worst of it. It was awkward enough for me to talk about stuff I'd written without trying to navigate interview rules, so I offered up a blanket "off the record" on the whole conversation before we began.

Even though there's a couple of interesting things that I could have posted if I hadn't done so, I'm particularly glad I did now that I've had a day to think it over. During our conversation I nodded along with things I wouldn't have nodded along with in most any other situation, because I was curious as to the viewpoint of an insider, and I wanted to encourage the conversation. Not intentionally or manipulatively, just conversation pragmatics.

During some of that nodding, I was being spun. I was nodding along with opinion as if it were fact. When I say I was being spun, I don't mean to imply intention or manipulation (nor lack thereof, which under some circumstances could be construed even more negatively), merely that someone was presenting me with a particular view of reality that they wanted me to share. In hindsight, working on a post right after the conversation might have led me to inadvertently accept some premises that I wouldn't normally let get by me.

So anyway. David Goodman. Nice enough guy. Willing to talk to constituents. Smart. I'm still hoping that he fails in his quest for the Appeals Court, mainly because I want to see an open seat in the 3rd in 2010 rather than an incumbent Republican. He can respect that. Blogging goes on.