Van Orden is an ass. In college, as part of Student Senate we visited every representative from our college’s general region to lobby for more college system funding. I happened to be working at a bank in his district and was the only person in our group with any actual ties to his district. I tried really hard to tie my talking points to his district and to his farming background (he even had a picture of his family farm in his office) and made sure to mention how I married into a farming family. He ignored everything any of us had to say, except he would happily interrupt whoever was talking to talk to the pretty nursing student who had a habit of pretending to be unaware when people are flirting with her.

Van Orden was the only representative we met (and between the regular meet and greets and our lobbying we met most of the state’s elected representatives) who refused to give us the time of day and didn’t at least pretend to be interested in what any of us had to say.