Would Muriel Hanson ever vote for Tim Walz?

Despite Brian Davis's claims of widespread support in the First, we've noticed that letters supporting him are coming from a very small pool of correspondents, and they tend to get sent to multiple papers. When a new voice shows up, we notice.

One such letter was that presumably written by Muriel Hanson of Preston, who opened her gas bill to discover a big spike.  We read in the July 17 Austin Herald:

My heating bill arrived today with an increase in my monthly even pay amount for natural gas.

The folks at the Winona Daily News must have held the letter a couple of days, because Muriel didn't open her gas bill until July 21 in their pages. But we have to give the slug-a-bed award to the editors at the Post Bulletin, since readers in the medical city didn't get to read about Muriel's gas bill opening until August 5.

Muriel supposedly concluded (probably back in mid-July):

The oil fields that are not currently open to production also offer natural gas opportunities. If Tim Walz won’t open up oil and natural gas production, then I am voting for Brian Davis. It’s just that simple. I thought the gasoline situation was bad, but now I know it’s only part of the story.

On July 31,  Walz and the bipartisan House Energy Working group had finishing drafting H.R. 6709 and introduced it in Congress. The bill opens up oil and gas production, allows for the development of oil shale and takes other measures as well. 

Now that the measure has been introduced, will Muriel Hanson consider voting for Tim Walz? 

We have to wonder, since according to this PDF of "2008 Republican Election Judges that signed up at 2008 Caucuses,"  posted by the Fillmore County Auditor-Treasurer, Hanson caucused with the local Republicans in February 2008.

Perhaps we are overly cynical when we suggest that the choice Hanson will make in November had little to do with her opening up her gas bill, but was influenced more by her affiliation with the Republican Party? Could it be that just that simple?

Knowing that she had caucused with the Republicans in February, would most readers judge her letter to have been written in good faith?

Comments

[pbreader]

Have to say something smelled fishy about Muriel's letter. Most people don't open up their utility bill and blame their congressional representative. Except of course, you're a 100% political partisan, or a political operative writes a letter in your name.