Local politics: Too nasty or too nice?
From time to time you hear people say that things were better back in the day; folks were more caring, more polite, they were kinder and gentler.
Recently, I sat across a dinner table from a prominent local politician — we were attending the same banquet — when he brought up the subject of the spring primary election campaign.
He lamented the tone of the campaign, its nastiness. He said politics was a mean business these days, not like before. It used to be that candidates running for office respected one another. They didn’t attack one another like politicians do today.
I said I was astonished to hear that. My experience looking on as a reporter is that local politics is riven by factional disputes and personal differences. Elections by their very nature are competitive, and one on one competition sometimes can become nasty.
Now, there are certain factors which tend to soften the political blows that might otherwise be struck locally. For instance, candidates may be neighbors, they may attend the same church, they may have graduated from the same high school, they may work together, or their children may play on the same sports teams.
It’s not the same as running for Congress, or even the General Assembly; candidates for these offices frequently don’t know each another, they won’t ever bump into one another on the sidewalk, in the neighborhood. They are defined by their party labels, their party factions, not their personal connections.
Still in all, the idea that politics — local politics — is rougher and tougher today than in the past struck me as erroneous.
There are certainly instances from the past I can draw on to prove my point. One example in particular comes to mind. It took place in the middle 1930s. Campaigns were splashier then; there were frequent rallies, more oratory, and by the tone of the remarks I’m going to cite, a greater chance that a speaker might go off the deep end.
Martin Ryan was a coal miner from Grindstone. He was instrumental in the great bituminous coal strike of 1933 as the leader of an insurgent faction not only on the outs with management but not infrequently with officers of the United Mine Workers. The UMW district president in those days was Billy Hynes. Ryan and Hynes, two Irishmen, had their differences, many of which were aired publicly
Ryan also waded into politics, losing races for several local offices, including school director. Ryan allied himself with fellow Democrat county commissioner John Rankin. In today’s lingo, Ryan and Rankin were members of the anti-establishment wing the county Democratic Party.
In August of 1935, at a political rally on a highway “near” Brownsville, Ryan and Rankin loosened a verbal barrage. Ryan’s target was Frank Canistra of Republic, then serving as postmaster, in those patronage days, a plum job.
“When I call Frank Canistra a liar,” Ryan told the crowd, “some of you may think he will get peeved … but not at all. That is his middle name. His right name is Frank Liar Canistra … moonshiner … bootlegger … scab.”
Ryan had some choice words for Anthony Cavalcante, too, a lawyer and former Republican elected to the General Assembly in 1934 as a Democrat.
Ryan said Canistra and Cavalcante were “little Mussolini” and “big Mussolini” respectively, a reference, of course, to Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator.
Did I mention that Ryan was a wee bit prejudiced? “I’m not criticizing the foreigners,” he said, “but I do believe there should be at least one English-speaking man on that [party] committee, or at least one [Democratic Party] county chairman who has the guts to say something about it.”
Canistra and Cavalcante were “the dirtiest curs in Fayette County,” John Rankin said. Both former Republicans, their primary motive in becoming Democrats was to ” crucify us, ” Rankin said, not making clear who “us” was.
Declaring himself free of bigotry, Rankin told the rally crowd, “I think there’s men here who know … I never took exception to any … hunkie or … dago. If anything I have been their friend in this county.
All of this is pretty tough language. It’s impossible to imagine any of today’s candidates uttering such sentiments, although we live in an age of astounding surprises and upsets.
But what if the politician at the banquet table the other night was right about this being a time of unusual harshness in local politics? We know national politics are bad and headed to worse maybe. Are local pols plodding down the same path?
If they are, those of us not turning to Facebook and other social media for campaign developments are missing out — for it seems that’s where the bulk of the negative campaigning takes place. Here’s my take: it’s better that such things be out in the open – a street rally would do — rather than lurking in the veiled precincts of technology and social media.
In a way, the past was better.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.