CANDIDATE SHOWS TRUE COLORS
It's Dansville, Jack. Dansville.
The name of the town you want to represent in Congress. There's an S in it. It's pronounced "Dansville."
This has to do with Jack Davis, the Democrat running for Congress against Tom Reynolds. He was talking to the newspaper the other day and trying to explain why he's not really campaigning personally in this race.
He explained that "my time is very valuable" and so driving out to actually see the people and the places of the district is just not worthwhile for him. If elected, he doesn't see things being any different. He doesn't want to shake hands and kiss babies.
Or get off his wrinkled, rich arse.
"It just doesn't seem to be efficient," Jack Davis told the Rochester newspaper, "to get in the car and drive to Danville, go down, meet with 30 or 40 people and turn around and drive back."
We'll come back to geography in a moment. Right now we're talking arrogance.
Because it is a special kind of arrogance that asks people for their votes but doesn't think those people are valuable enough to come out and visit. Thirty or 40 people don't amount to a hill of beans in Jack Davis's book, at least not enough to warrant any effort on his part. Every vote is supposed to count, but 30 or 40 people don't, at least not to Jack Davis.
Never mind the fact that politicians of both parties have worked for years on exactly the opposite premise. Never mind the fact that everybody from dog catcher to president works on the premise that a person's vote is a precious and priceless thing, and that the best way to ask someone for it is by looking them in the eye and shaking their hand.
And listening to what they have to say.
See, someone who serves in Congress is called a "representative." That's the title, and that's the job, to represent a people and a place. And to do that, you have to know those people and the place they live. To do that, you actually have to go there. You have to meet people in their towns and in their homes and in their businesses and on their farms. You have to shake their hands and take their measure and see firsthand what matters to them. You have to understand their lives and their priorities.
That is the only way you can truly represent them.
And to do that, you have to go to them.
Which makes the incredible arrogance of Jack Davis all the more repulsive. He wants to go to Congress, theoretically in the name of the people of the district, but his time is so "very valuable" that he'll be damned if he's going to actually go out and meet people.
Or learn the name of their towns.
But we're not to the geography part, yet.
First, we need to ask: If Jack Davis isn't going to campaign by going out into the district and meeting people, how is he going to do it?
Well, Jack wants to buy the election.
He's got $2 million of his own money into the contest so far and he's willing to put up another quarter of a million. He's got the money bags and he's willing to tap into them as much as he has to in order to flood the airwaves with TV commercials. He just wants to run commercials. It turns out it's a lot easier to hire somebody on Madison Avenue to put together smear ads for you than it is to go out and speak to people yourself and try to sound coherent. Instead of speaking to all the Kiwanis clubs and church groups in the district, instead of going out to the parades and banquets, instead of standing outside the door of the store handing out pamphlets and making the case for his candidacy, Jack Davis just wants to run TV ads.
I guess it's a lot easier to be lazy when you're rich.
Though his plan seems to rely on one-way communication. It seems like there's no place in the plan for the people to be heard. You can find out what he thinks any time you turn on your TV. But he's not coming to your town to find out what you think. There is no venue for residents and voters to tell him what they think. Which, again, is a pretty odd type of representation.
Jack Davis wants to represent a district which neighbors one served by a 77-year-old congresswoman -- Louise Slaughter. By way of comparison, Louise Slaughter will come see anybody at any time in her sprawling district. And she's been in Congress for 20 years, and she doesn't even really have an opponent. Yet she comes out to see and hear from the people. Ditto for Hillary Clinton, a United States senator, former First Lady and possible next president who is also going to win in a landslide. They, like Jack Davis, are Democrats. But why is Jack Davis so much better than they are that he can't come out and see the people? Why is his time so much more "very valuable" than theirs?
Now, to geography.
When you're talking to a newspaper reporter, and you are of your own volition -- without being asked -- mentioning the name of a town in your district, get the name right. That's not a hard thing. Nothing says "carpetbagger" louder than getting the name of a town wrong. Nothing says "You don't give a damn about this district" louder than not even knowing the names of the towns. Jack Davis, in talking about places he wasn't willing to drive to to meet 40 voters, cited "Danville." It was not a typo, it was not a misspeak, it was what he thought the town was called. There are Danvilles in 18 states, but New York isn't one of them.
And you have to ask yourself, how can a man possibly represent a place in Congress if he isn't even familiar enough with the place to know its name? Could he have possibly ever been there and not learned its name?
Almost more troubling is how it is that someone who has lived his entire adult life in western New York -- including operating a business that serves the region for 40 years -- could not in the natural course of things have learned that the village in Livingston County is called Dansville? Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in Dansville -- as New York kids learn in history class -- and the state hot-air balloon festival is held there -- as anyone who wanted to shake hands with thousands of potential voters would know -- and it is the biggest shopping hub between Hornell and Geneseo -- as anyone familiar with the region's economy would know. Seriously, if you watch the evening news, or read the newspaper, or hear the school closings on the radio on snowy mornings, how could you avoid hearing hundreds and hundreds of times about Dansville? Typically, people from a region know the place names of that region, just by osmosis.
But nothing has soaked into Jack Davis's head.
And if he doesn't know the name of the town, and isn't willing to go there to meet three-dozen people, how could the people of Dansville -- or anywhere -- believe that he will effectively represent them in Congress? Jack Davis is always talking about jobs and the need to develop western New York's economy. How can he advocate for jobs in a community he refuses to visit? How can he do any good for Dansville in Washington if he doesn't know about the empty Foster-Wheeler plant, or beautiful Stonybrook State Park or the rail line that goes north into Mount Morris and Rochester.
To hell with Dansville, Jack Davis will just buy more TV ads.
Why not, he can afford it.
But Dansville can't afford him. And neither can all those other places he can't pronounce and won't visit.
A congressman should love his district and its people. Jack Davis doesn't even know this district and its people.
And he doesn't want to meet them.
Voters should remember that on Election Day.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2006
