For political observers, the special election for the Pennsylvania 12th district is March 13th has become important in that it’s a traditionally Republican district, considered safe,, and pits State Representative Rick Saccone (R), a Ph.D. (PoliSci) characterized as an ally of President Trump, against youthful former Marine and attorney Conor Lamb. Politico notes that Trump’s White House, no doubt stung by the Alabama debacle, wants to reverse the momentum in this typically conservative-leaning district:
After a humiliating loss in the Alabama Senate race last month, the administration is drawing up ambitious plans that will kick off next Thursday when Trump travels to the conservative district to appear with Republican candidate Rick Saccone. Vice President Mike Pence and an assortment of Cabinet officials are also expected to make trips; Pence may go twice ahead of the March 13 special election, two administration officials said.
The White House has taken an especially keen interest in the race: Members of Trump’s political affairs office met with Saccone this week. And during a Tuesday conference call between the Republican national party committees and the Saccone campaign, White House political director Bill Stepien expressed displeasure with the progress the candidate was making on fundraising. Stepien said Saccone wasn’t raising enough money and asked for an update on the campaign’s progress in the days to come.
That strikes me as some top-down directives. Does the local GOP machine not have it all under control? And what does the White House know about the local fight?
And what are these two candidates saying? Politico is admirably concise:
Saccone has presented himself as a staunch ally of the president, praising Trump for the job he’s done and vowing to help enact his policies. Lamb, meanwhile, has struck a delicate balance. While saying that he didn’t vote for Trump and pointing to his failure to pass an infrastructure bill, he has also praised the president for declaring the opioid epidemic, which has severely affected the district, a public health emergency.
In other words, Saccone is presenting as a right-wing extremist, while Lamb is reaching out to disaffected moderate conservatives, while hoping that the general liberal loathing for Lyin’ Trump will keep them on his side.
So how have things looked in the past? There’s no point in a chart because the former occupant of the seat, Tim Murphy (R), has not faced opposition since 2012, when he won with 64% of the vote. Mr. Murphy resigned in 2017 due to a sex scandal.
That said, it’s good to see the Democrats once again active in the district, because truth be told, the more a party dominates a district, the less likely the Representative is going to really be a quality leader. While driven people can improve in a vacuum, improvement is much more likely in the presence of competition, because it can become improve or die. Evaluating political performance is a very tricky thing to do, unfortunately, so this general observation does have its flaws. I happen to live in Representative Betty McCollum’s district, which is considered quite safe, and while I like her and think she probably does a good job, I do wish that McCollum faced some competition each cycle. But how well does McCollum perform? The metric? Votes on issues are a very popular measure, partly because it’s easy. How about leadership metrics?
Returning to my district, sure, there was a Republican’s name on the ballot the last couple of times – but I couldn’t tell you the name(s). Indeed, to be fair, I even talked briefly with one of them once. His language was strictly boilerplate, and if he thought that was up to snuff, he was deeply wrong.
An inactive party does not encourage the citizens to become active in the political world, and that is wrong. That the 18th district of Pennsylvania lacked a full slate of candidates was a sad mistake, I think. I hope their correction works out for them. The last thing the nation needs is another Republican YesMan.
