Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in Washington and the author of the book "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) On Tuesday night, America was introduced to an unfamiliar woman: Kirsten Gillibrand, actual human being.

Jill Filipovic

Gillibrand has been in politics for more than a decade, and her identity is more often caricatured (she's Hillary Jr., she's Tracy Flick , she's the woman who brought down Al Franken) than captured.

Her CNN town hall on Tuesday was a chance for her to present herself to the many who may have only heard about her in outline. What she filled in: that she's a person who, like all of us, evolves and shifts; that she can be deeply empathetic and flatly indignant; that she's fluent in policy and has a message of fighting greed and knitting the country back together.

In a political environment increasingly defined by overconfidence, unflinching certitude and uncompromising fidelity to a specific worldview, Gillibrand expressed caution and even remorse when she was uncertain. She said some of her decisions as a Congresswoman from a red district in upstate New York (from 2007-2009) now bring her shame -- a striking departure from the usual non-apology political justifications.

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Where she was undecided or unsure on an issue -- something that came up in questions about mandatory vaccines and lowering the voting age to 16 -- she simply said so, rather than offering a winding non-answer. And when she knew, she knew: Gillibrand's policy solutions were detailed and clearly at the heart of her case. When she was asked about the role of private insurers in her vision of Medicare for All, she emphasized her role in crafting the transition section of Bernie Sanders's bill, explaining how broad Medicare benefits will essentially undercut insurance companies and naturally drive them from the marketplace.

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