Every challenger has come forward and said he's going to challenge me and win because I'm out of touch with the constituents. We run a race, the election comes, and the majority of voters disagree with them.
Social media is a powerful tool to connect constituents with the policy making process.
As Members of Congress we can now engage with our constituents via online innovations like the Huffington Post, while a small business in rural Oregon can use the Internet to find customers around the world.
Few Americans have ever met their Congresspeople. They don't see them at the grocery store; they don't meet them at the bowling alley. They're more likely to see their representatives in photographs from the Daily Grill in Washington, D.C., than at a local town hall.
It's one thing to answer to constituents. It's another thing to have professional disruptors show up at an event with the intent to derail so that you can't connect with your constituents.
Most people who get in trouble in politics usually get in trouble because they're disconnected from the people they serve, and I don't think anybody in Tennessee, even people who won't vote for me, would accuse me of that.
In every election homophobia has been part of the landscape and in every campaign I've been able to become connected enough to my constituents that they know who I am and that I can be elected on my merits.
But I don't feel that as a politician I'm hugely different. Obviously I have a different set of experiences that chime with experiences that many of my constituents have. I think I essentially still have the same set of values and the issues that are important to me don't seem to have changed hugely.
You see as mayors and local officials our jobs are designed so we have more in common with our constituents than Washington politicians can ever have.
