Senator John Kerry (D, MA) posted this over on dKos this morning:

A quick note this morning -– I'm chairing a Senate Small Business committee business meeting this morning and running around between votes -- but I'll check back in the afternoon to read and respond.

But before I go -- netroots, we need you to meet the ‘new environmentalists.’

Over the last two years, I thought a lot about the political process – about how to make issues voting issues. It’s been a ‘back to basics’ approach for me. I came into politics as an activist –- Earth Day 1970 and then full time in the movement to end the Vietnam War.

And when I thought of the environment, it hit me that even more dangerous about this administration’s assault on the environment is the assumption on which that assault relies: they think people don’t care. They’ve gotten away with dismissing the environmental movement as “elitist” ... or do-gooder ... “tree-hugging.”

[snip]

No doubt, we in politics must work to solve the problems at 30,000 feet -— with bold new ideas for energy independence—but this movement will only succeed if it’s more about you than us -– if Americans get out there to protect the ground beneath their own two feet.

No doubt the right wing is going to pile on. We’ve seen what they‘ve done to our friend Al Gore, and as an old friend of mine used to say “it is what it is.” But I hope you’ll step in and fight their cynicism. This book isn’t about us.

[snip]

Okay, fair enough. The man says he wants to hear what we say, and he's offering to read & respond to what we post in that thread. (Well, better make that "those threads" instead -- the piece he penned for dKos is also cross-posted on his own blog here as well.)

Sounds like a reasonable offer to me. Senator gives us a shoutout, asks us for a talkback, promises he'll respond. Okay, that works. Let's run with it.

Goddess knows that the more pols who would be willing to do that sort of thing, the better off this country would be in the long run...