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So, for me the town hall meetings are really an opportunity to engage in two-way dialogue with people, and they've been very helpful.

We here in the North have for many years had a natural tendency to feel that when our representatives come together at an international meeting, we embark on the quest of mutual understanding and support.

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.

Over the summer I thought that I would seek out non-Americans as friends, just for diversity's sake. Now I find that I want to be around Americans - people who I know are thinking about our country as much as I am.

Throughout my work as a state legislator and member of Congress since 2002, I have worked as hard as I could to build bridges. I've worked to combat anti-Semitism and confront Holocaust denial. I've organized dozens of meetings to promote interfaith dialogue and joint projects.

I probably hold more town halls than any member of Congress.

I like conventions. I like meeting and greeting. I'm perched on that edge where I'm getting more attention than I quite know what to do with, though.

Most of my town hall meetings had always been love fests, and some of my guys used to complain: 'I'd like for somebody to yell at you a bit.'

Meetings should be great - they're opportunities for a group of people sitting together around a table to directly communicate. That should be a good thing. And it is, but only if treated as a rare delicacy.

I meet many people, I talk with them, like a TV show host. I show what's going on with Greenpeace, interesing political things, I have artists, musicians and bands.