Wanted: campaign crackle-and-pop
A little after 10 on a recent Saturday morning, Vince Vicites stepped from a vehicle in front of the local UMW headquarters near the Walmart in South Union Township
Vicites, the long serving Fayette County commissioner, was here in his role as candidate Vince Vicites. He’s up for reelection on Tuesday. Vicites first ran for commissioner in 1991. His first victory came in 1995.
Inside the mine workers’ warren of offices, Vicites addressed a meeting of UMW Local 1248. Given five minutes, he spoke close to 15. Afterward, he handed out to each of the 20 or so retired miners present small writing pads. “Vicites Commissioner,” read the script at the top. Toward the bottom: “At work building Fayette County’s future.”
Moments later, outside on the sidewalk, Vicites spoke to me about what it’s like to campaign for local office in 2019. It’s not all that different from that first time 28 years ago, he said.
Vicites, a short, stocky 59-year-old, estimated he’s made some 300 appearances. The previous night, he said, he mingled with fans at the Connellsville-Albert Gallatin high school football game. Earlier on Saturday, he was at a Uniontown church event. From the UMW he was headed to a charitable fundraiser at a downtown bar.
Then it was on to four or five more events, including a Halloween parade in Brownsville. A family wedding was on tap for Saturday evening, thought that, too, was a kind of campaign stop. In the fall, before an election, it’s good to shake as many hands as possible.
“Sunday will be busier,” Vicites, a Democrat, said.
Hard work and long hours are mainstays of campaigning, then and now. Vicites said the only real difference between 1991 and 2019 are the number of times the candidates, Democrats and Republicans, get together in public to debate or to discuss the issues.
There used to be four or five such occasions. This year, he said, there’s been only one — a Chamber of Commerce gathering at Penn State-Fayette — where the four candidates running for county commissioner were asked questions, but not asked to debate one another.
Scott Dunn, a first-time candidate for county commissioner, was there as one of the two men nominated for commissioner by Republican voters in the spring primary. (Republican incumbent Dave Lohr is also on Tuesday’s ballot along with Democrat Kevin Jones.)
In at least one respect, veteran campaigner Vicites and newcomer Dunn are alike: both have been campaigning rather quietly. Dunn spends most of his time going door-to-door introducing himself to voters.
“I just say I’m running for county commissioner,” Dunn, 54, explained. “If they want to engage further, I will. I spent 10 or 15 minutes talking to one guy on his porch in Uniontown.”
There haven’t been many such occasions, Dunn said. While most people seem pleased that he’s knocked on their door, most politely nod without asking questions.
Dunn aims to create “viral” moments by his door to door campaigning. He hopes the voters he meets will spread the word to their friends, neighbors, and relatives about him, thus igniting a wave of support that will carry him to victory.
A Dunbar borough councilman, Dunn indicated that running countywide is daunting: the county is so much larger than Dunbar borough.
Dunn expected the campaign to unfold differently. He had hoped to debate the issues with his rivals. He had hoped to be able to contrast himself with them, to discuss differences, to highlight why he feels he would make a better county commissioner.
But this campaign is not constructed to allow that to happen.
Whatever is the opposite of robust, that’s what this campaign is — at least from the outside looking in.
Campaigns should be about public discussion and engagement, not private grievance, as is often the case on local Facebook pages about the commissioners’ race.
They should be about mobilizing and energizing people who are not normally tuned in to local politics and government. In this regard, parties can help, but the decline of local party vitality is startling.
Recently, county Democrats held their fall dinner. The speaker was Michael Lamb, the Pittsburgh city controller and the uncle of congressman Connor Lamb. Not to offend, but Michael Lamb is not likely to rev up the troops. In years past — maybe many years past — speakers included congressmen, senators, governors.
As for the county GOP and the race for commissioner, well, the party is AWOL.
Because they are largely hostages to circumstances, candidates like Vicites and Dunn can only do so much to rectify this situation that impacts all of us. Robust local political campaigns are important — not only to the vitality of local government, but to democracy itself.
Edgy local campaigns are good. Dull campaigns are bad — they put voters to sleep. Dull politics threatens democracy. And a democracy that fosters indifference to politics will soon not be a democracy.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.