Politicians on campaign sweeps visit lots of places.
Ice cream shops, diners, factories, state fairs – the opportunities are endless. You might only shake hands with five or ten people there, but if a photo makes it on the evening news or the morning paper, tens of thousands of people may see it. And nothing beats free publicity.
Most of these quick campaign stops are interchangeable. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a gift shop or a fast food place, all that matters is some fluffy, issue-free reporting on the evening news.
Something went very wrong with that system on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. Instead of the human interest story of Joe Biden buying sandwiches for steelworkers, the fact that the photo op took place at a Sheetz gas station and convenience store turned out to be the news story of the week, especially in Appalachia where Sheetz employs some 25,000 people, a region where hundreds of thousands of working folks of all ages got their start in that kind of job over the years.
The very same day that Scranton Joe was glad-handing potential voters at a Sheetz location in the swing state of Pennsylvania, Beltway Joe’s deputies at the EEOC, back home in the very non-swing jurisdiction of Washington D.C. were putting the final touches on a ridiculous federal lawsuit against Sheetz.
On Thursday, Americans were confronted with two very different stories: Joe Biden lauding the local Sheetz store as quintessential Americana, and Joe Biden attacking a private business on trumped-up charges, looking for every opportunity to beat up a successful corporation.
The dichotomy reminds one of the perennial Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of the politicians of the swamp:
While Jekyll’s smiling figure shakes your hand and kisses your baby at election time, Hyde’s mind is always rooted in the bureaucracy – working 24/7 to use the power of government, to destroy your business, your neighborhood, your environment, your life.
The job of the campaign, the press, the education system and the pop culture is to hide that dichotomy so no voter ever notices it. The timing on this particular incident made that job more difficult than usual.