What a long, strange year it’s been. Never in my wildest dreams … .
What a long, strange year it’s been. Never in my wildest dreams … .
In addition to the rise of Donald Trump, there is the strange race for Congress involving Bill Shuster, Art Halvorson, and Adam Sedlock.
Did I say strange? Baffling and bewildering, too. I’ll explain.
Bill Shuster, the incumbent, is the Republican in the race. He’s been on the job since 2001, when he more or less inherited the seat from his dad Bud, who was a Washington power broker of many years standing. Either the father or the son Shuster has occupied a seat in Congress since 1973. That’s 43 years, back to the time of Nixon and Watergate.
Art Halvorson is the Democrat. Except he’s not really a Democrat. Halvorson, retired from the Coast Guard, is a very, very conservative Republican. A tea party guy. It happens that he waged, apparently covertly (something he denies), a successful write-in campaign for the Democratic nomination at the same time that he was fighting a public campaign to wrest the GOP nomination from Shuster.
Adam Sedlock, a psychologist, calls himself the “real” Democrat in the race, which is true enough. It’s too bad he failed to take out nominating papers for a line on the Democratic primary ballot. He would have been the only “real” Democrat running. As it was, he pinned his hopes on a spring write-in, eh, strategy. He’s now waging another write-in campaign. This time for the seat itself.
Sedlock pretty quickly announced his intentions about the fall following the April primary. Meanwhile, back at Tammany Hall, Halvorson, Hamlet-like, just couldn’t seem to make up his mind about the nomination tendered him by a relatively small number of Democrats with Tea Party proclivities.
Finally, in the middle of summer, he let himself be summoned. Democrats had a candidate — an unwelcome one, to be sure.
Now, the truth is, this is the year of the political mailer. They’ve been arriving in mail boxes for the past several weeks with some regularity. I could paste a wall with Matthew Dowling mailers alone. Tim Mahoney must feel like he’s been hit by a postal truck.
Art Halvorson has suffered one blow after another in the blizzard of mailers.
“Art Halvorson supports cutting Social Security and changing Medicare to negatively impact seniors,” reads one.
“Art Halvorson is radically wrong for our seniors,” it continues.
Sounds like Democratic stock-in-trade. Sounds like. Isn’t. Tucked in a corner of the mailer is a pleasant enough photo of Bill Shuster. The mailer originated in Harrisburg with the Republican Party of Pennsylvania.
“A Tea Party Conservative,” reads another anti-Halvorson diatribe. “He calls Democrats ‘GODLESS’ and vows to push his Tea Party agenda.”
The mailer quotes a Democratic congressman, Robert Brady, who doubles as party chief in Philadelphia. “Another tea partier. We don’t need that,” Brady is said to have said.
This Democratic-sounding mailer bears the imprimatur of a political action committee (PAC) that calls itself Stand With America of Sacramento, Calif. According to the straight-shooting Center for Responsible Politics, Stand With America is “Republican/conservative.”
Do you notice the pattern here? It’s pretty blatant, and these were before Friday’s mailer. “Democrats From Across Fayette County Are Coming Together To Support Bill Shuster,” this one declares.
“Dear Fayette County resident,” begins a Shuster endorsement signed by 11 Democratic supervisors who serve in five different townships. “We proudly support Bill Shuster and hope you will join us.”
This mailer was paid for by the Bill Shuster for Congress committee.
The courting of Democrats is a strategy Shuster has been rolling out for weeks, if not months. It explains an odd moment that took place at the end of the one and only debate of the congressional campaign, in early fall, when Shuster extended an outstretched hand to Sedlock, expressing admiration for Sedlock, though he said he disagreed with the Democrat on issues pretty much across the board.
It’s absolutely true that chairman Shuster has managed to steer through his House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as well as the full House, two measures — a water bill and a road bill — with broad support from both sides of the aisle.
The congressman’s bipartisan bonafides are real enough. Otherwise, he’s a partisan Republican, having cast 60 votes against Obamacare and having been embraced by the party’s presidential nominee. At a rally in Altoona, Donald Trump declared that Bill Shuster was his kind of congressman, that he and Bill could work together to make America great again.
The dilemma for Democrats, especially moderate to liberal ones, is acute; there are no good choices in this race for Congress, though Halvorson would seem to be out of the question (except if you’re a tea party Democrat, of which there are more than a few).
That leaves Sedlock or Shuster. The case for Sedlock is simple: he’s one of your own, a true-blue Democrat. Arguably the most important vote a congressman casts is the vote to organize the House at the start of the term. Sedlock, if given the chance, would vote for a Democratic speaker of the House, presumably Nancy Polosi.
The case against Sedlock is this: there is no way he emerges from this mess as congressman-elect. Not as a write-in Democrat in the red 9th congressional district.
Democrats must ask themselves: is voting for Sedlock the same as throwing a vote away?
Depends. Does voting for Sedlock strengthen the party and its long-range prospects? Does it send a message to Shuster, presuming he remains in office, that there are 9th district Democrats watching and measuring his words and deeds?
Maybe a vote for Sedlock accomplishes both of these things. Maybe neither.
For many Democrats, it may very well come down to this — which Republican is more palatable: throw-an-occasional-vote-your-way Shuster or Halvorson, whose bipartisan creds look thinner than Donald Trump’s foreign policy resume?
A party chieftain told me that any number of district Democrats, wary of Halvorson, would cast their lot with Shuster. If that is the case, then Halvorson should be toast. Should be. Remember, it’s been a strange year.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation”and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.