This is the first (technically second after my MLK Day Diary) of a proposed series of short essays about the congressional campaign Aaron Anthony is running to unseat Keith Rothfus (R-Clueless) in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. This level of involvement in a campaign is far outside my previous political experience, so I’m seeing a lot of this for the first time. My goal is to provide some insight into the process of running for Congress and to force myself to slow down and review and reflect on what I’m seeing.
We currently have four democrats/progressives running for the privilege of facing off against Rothfus (R-Tedious) in the fall. In my view, three of them are progressives and the other is a centrist. They all gathered on February 2nd at an American Legion Post in Brackenridge, PA, a mill town on the Allegheny river upstream from Pittsburgh, for a candidate forum. Depending on the outcome of the Pennsylvania redistricting process, the attendees might be in a different district in a few weeks.
The setup is that a moderator asks a question and each of the candidates has 2 minutes to respond. Since all of the candidates agree (for the most part) that the current conservative position is bad or untenable and the liberal position is obviously the way to go, differences tend to be quite nuanced. So it’s retraining displaced workers for new jobs opportunities vs creating new job opportunities for a retrained workforce. It strikes me that two minutes isn’t enough time to describe a developed policy position and too much time to make general statements. So the answers are either a race to mention every bullet point or an attempt to drag out a point to just fill up the time. On top of that the sound system is challenging and not all of the candidates hold the microphone far enough away from their mouths. There are so many ‘P’s being popped, I keep looking around to see if Orville Redenbacher is working the microwave.
With four people responding to the same question with very similar statements, the audience is glazing over halfway through the second response to any question and waiting to see if the next question is going to raise some substantial disagreement which would be entertaining.
Aaron does pretty good at this, because he’s the best public speaker of the group (and in my completely unbiased view, he has the best policy positions). He also had a few succinct responses of the “Short answer: No; Long answer: Hell no” variety, which for your not so humble reporter were a welcome respite.
Still, it’s hard to hold even a committed audience with this level of almost repetition. There has to be a better way. I suggested a swimsuit competition, but was voted down and invited to “keep my damn mouth shut.” I suspect caucusing would work, but that’s even more of a time commitment than a 1 hour forum and would draw in only the ultra-committed. I think four way debates are also problematical. Perhaps we could bring in the candidates one after the other and let the audience have at them for a half an hour each in a sequential town hall format. Clearly, the only fair way to present the candidates would be alphabetical. If anyone has some ideas about how we can do a better job of parading our candidates in front of our voters please jump in and fill up the comments section.
When it’s over the candidates gather to shake hands and agree to do this all again soon. I’m not quite sure why Beth didn’t join the handshaking scrum. She’s way over by herself, off stage right, seemingly waiting for the boys to come to her. It struck me as odd. Anyone have any idea why she’d hang back like that?
The post-forum group handshake
minus one.
Disclaimer — The views expressed here are my own and not the views of the Aaron Anthony campaign (although some of them probably are; I didn’t ask; they didn’t tell)
Next Installment — The House Party Fundraiser.
Probable future installment — Me ranting about the influence of money in politics
And that brings me to the link so you can help Aaron repeal and replace Rothfus (R-Sleazy)
Remember campers, only you can prevent trumpster fires.
Resist. Vote. Impeach. Imprison.
