OP-ED: Not showing up disrespects democracy
Here’s a thought experiment: Can any of you recall what Guy Reschenthaler – our congressman – actually looks like?
I recollect him as a tall, lean fella, with a strong chin and crystalline eyes. Think actor Jon Hamm, only better looking and in infinitely better shape.
Now I may be wrong, because I also have in mind a plumb, middle-aged man. In this telling, the congressman is anything but the romantic type. Instead, he’s a workable, recognizable version of modern man. Too little exercise, too many nachos.
Because Reschenthaler has been virtually invisible to the average voter, it’s hard to say what he looks like. It may be that he started out looking like Jon Hamm but now looks like Jack Black.
It’s the middle of October in the year 2026. An election is coming up in which Guy’s name will be on the ballot. I wish he’d at least let us have a look at him. In the flesh, I mean. A couple of weeks ago, his office (or maybe it was someone else in that faraway land known as Washington, D.C.) put out a mailer touting the congressman’s accomplishments. That was OK, as far as it went.
But I, for one, would like to see the real thing. A living, walking, talking Guy Reschenthaler. That would be something.
James Talarico, the Texas Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, recently spent nine days on the sidelines of his campaign. He was at home, nursing a flu bug, which he probably caught shaking so many hands as he campaigned across the length and breadth of the Lone Star state. His absence was noted by his Republican opponent in the race, Ken Paxton, who took to asking followers, “Where is James Talarico?”
It became quite a thing when Paxton’s rally audiences took up the cry with him, “Where is James Talarico?”
For a brief while, Talarico was reported by rightwing social media types to be treating a mental health condition at a clinic in Ohio. That lasted as long as it took the clinic to issue a denial.
Then Talarico returned to campaigning. No more flu, no more wild hypotheses, no more mystery. There stood the candidate. Texans could see him.
I wish Guy Reschenthaler would allow us the same privilege.
I hope the congressman is not ill.
If he isn’t, and he’s off the campaign trail by design or strategy, I’m afraid he is guilty of a massive case of political and social incivility.
Here’s the deal: Politicians elected to office do not screen themselves off from the people who put them in office. To do so amounts to contempt, both of democracy and of the people.
There’s a long history of politicians actually asking people to vote for them. Tip O’Neill, the late Speaker of the House, told the story of the voter who failed to cast a ballot for him in a previous election.
The candidate was puzzled. Why? O’Neill asked. Because you didn’t ask, the voter replied. It was a lesson O’Neill took to heart.
Tip O’Neill was the guy who coined the phrase, “All politics is local.”
It seems being local won’t get an office-seeker very far today, when all politics is national.
Still, Guy might give it a try. The only loss on his part will be a loss of anonymity.
The British “stand” for office. Americans “run.” There’s a difference. It seems Guy is in the posture of standing for office. He may think the 14th Congressional District is one of those “rotten” British parliamentary districts of old, when the local aristocrat waited to be sworn into office after his party had pulled all the strings he needed to win a comfortable victory.
Even in this awful political environment for Republicans, Congressman Reschenthaler can perhaps rest at home during the current canvas, comfortable in the almost certain knowledge that his re-election is in the bag. But one day he will need to campaign. Will he be ready? Will he remember how?
Political campaigning can be a hard, grinding experience for the candidate, but it’s an absolutely necessary one. Voters are always urged to show up on Election Day. It only seems fair that candidates show up to campaign.
Doing so is an investment in democracy.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.