The Eighteenth Congressional District – my district – will conduct a Special Election in March to replace a Congressman who believes the only women who should be able to have abortions are the ones he impregnates. While it is “contiguous,” one must turn sideways at various locations to avoid stepping in other districts since it took a little twisting and turning to combine the voting blocks of the wealthy white people in its western half with the anything-but wealthy white people on the eastern side who register as Democrats and vote as Republicans. Once producing some of Pennsylvania’s more admirable moderates like John Heinz and Doug Walgren, the district began to lose its collective sense of moderation in the Nineties with the election of Rick Santorum.
After he departed to spew his discharges all over the Senate, and the voters responded to the “Santorum Experience” by electing a Democrat, Republicans twisted the district around like an M.C. Escher print to make sure it would only elect Republicans. And that Republican would still be “serving” the voters if he hadn’t instructed his girlfriend to abort his child while sponsoring a bill that would have prevented it.
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The March Special Election will pit Republican Rick Saccone against Democrat Conor Lamb. Lamb is from a prominent Democratic family – as is, seemingly, everyone who gets nominated by his Party in Western Pennsylvania. (The Mafia-style approach of County Democratic Committees is probably one of the main reasons we continue to elect Republicans despite a sizable Democratic advantage among registered voters.) Lamb has chosen the traditional PA Dem approach to controversial issues – he says he’s anti-abortion but pro-choice – and he’s a strong advocate for the rights of gun owners. (He should have probably qualified his support by saying he’s pro-gun but against shooting them.) His approach is that of the classic Clinton Democrat- “Vote for me. I’m not as bad as a real Republican.”
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Saccone boasts, “I was Trump before Trump was Trump.” That sure could mean a lot of things and we’re adding more to the list each day. But it is the kind of non-specific assertion that plays in this conservative district – close enough to the hills of West Virginia to be teeming with white racists but lacking a substantial minority population to politically counter-balance their effect. He’s a conservative Baptist who apparently wants your children to think as he thinks since among his state legislative initiatives were bills declaring a “Year of the Bible” and requiring school districts to place the motto, “In God We Trust” in each building. Saccone has two Master’s Degrees and a Doctorate – proving, once again, that a properly propagandized human being can spend twenty years in graduate school and still come out believing in fairy tales if he chooses. (Sorry, Rick, but Ben Carson already made that point quite effectively.)
The Special Election, say the pundits, will be decided by the working-class Democrats who have voted Republican in every election since 1980 but never bothered to change parties. Despite a substantial majority of registered voters, the district almost never votes for a Democrat. If the unthinkable were to occur in this election, experts will soon be saying, it would be a far greater statement of the public’s disdain for Donald Trump than Roy Moore’s defeat in Alabama because (thus far) the voters have no ancillary concerns to distract them – no cries of racism, no fourteen-year-old girlfriends. For the working-class white people who will decide the election, goes the analysis of national prognosticators, it will be all about Trump.
But the race will feature something else they may not be considering, something that has become all-too-common in Pennsylvania: No real choice. A self-styled moderate battles a right-wing extremist to determine who will not represent the interests of the people who elected them while they fill their campaign coffers with money from lobbyists in anticipation of runs for the Senate. Progressives need not apply.
If Lamb defeats Saccone – as most “experts” do not believe is possible in the gerrymandered district – it will clearly be a renunciation of one-party rule and Donald Trump. (Aside from his most impressive family, I can’t imagine anyone dragging themselves to the polls to vote for Conor Lamb.) If the expected occurs and Saccone holds the Republican seat, it might well prove nothing except the people of Western Pennsylvania are sick and tired of having another pro-gun Clinton “Democrat” shoved down their throats. And with an electorate that is ninety-five percent white, it might demonstrate nothing more than that a Trump clone has managed to hang onto the support of racists.
The voters of this district (like most of the nation, I suspect) are finished with what has become “politics as usual” in modern America – a regressive arrangement pitting a moderate against a conservative to guarantee, no matter who they elect, no real progress will occur. What will be determined in this Special Election is this: Are they are so frustrated by their lack of options they can’t even drag themselves out to vote against a candidate who openly declares his loyalty to the greatest national disgrace since Nagasaki?
Unless Robert Mueller swoops down like a Deus Ex Machina and cleans up the mess for us, the integrity of our Democracy could well depend on the decision-making capacity of people who previously elected Rick Santorum. Yikes!
[Featured image by Conor Lamb/YouTube]