What happens when someone lives in Washington DC for 50 years?  They tend to lose contact with their home-town folks.  Jim Oberstar has lived and worked in Washington DC for almost 50 years, first as a staffer on Capitol Hill and then for 36 years as the Congressman from the heretofore-safe 8th Congressional District in Minnesota.  Now that he faces a tough challenge from Chip Cravaack, though, no one seems to recall who Oberstar is or why they would want to send him back for a 19th term in the House.

Well, not exactly no one.  More like … one:

With a potentially competitive race developing back home in Minnesota’s 8th District, Transportation Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar collected a contribution from just one resident of the district between June 22 and Sept. 30, according to a federal election report filed Wednesday.

Jane Robbins of Pine City gave Oberstar $500 on Aug. 22.

Other than that, all of his contributions came from political action committees, Native American tribes or individual donors in other districts and states.

In all, the veteran Iron Range Democrat, first elected in 1974, collected just $233,102 in receipts over the time period. By comparison, fellow Minnesotan Michele Bachmann, a Republican firebrand, pulled in $5.4 million between July 1 and Sept. 30.

One?  In the final full quarter of the midterm election, Oberstar could only get one actual constituent to donate any money to him at all?  Maybe Ms. Robbins is the only one who still remembers Oberstar at all.

There is nothing wrong with raising money outside of a district or state for political campaigns.  There is something rather disturbing, though, about a Congressman who raises only 0.2% of his campaign funds from his own constituents.  It demonstrates that the Congressman in question no longer represents his district at all, but instead the entrenched interests where he has lived and worked for almost half a century.  The district should find someone new that actually knows the district — and whom the district knows, too.