What Joe Biden didn't let himself see in Pennsylvania
PITTSBURGH — Sometimes, we are presented with opportunities that could change how we view the world outside the bubble of our daily lives. One event can change how we see people, talk to people, and understand people and where they live, work, struggle, pray, and raise their families.
Too often, those opportunities are ignored, set aside because they take time and because there is no instant benefit, no immediate gratification, nothing tangible that shouts, “Look what I did.”
Last week, Democratic nominee Joe Biden made his first trip out of his Delaware basement since he accepted his party’s nomination by going to Pittsburgh, located in the state of his birth — a part of his background he often boasts about.
He flew in, stood in front of Mill 19, a multiuse office building that once employed 5,000 steelworkers but now is an incubator for robots doing manufacturing jobs. In short, there are no blue-collar jobs in this facility.
He gave out some Mineo's Pizza to firefighters, spoke for 12 minutes about violence in other cities that did not happen here, made a controversial claim about supporting fracking that counters some of what he has said before, took no questions from the press, and flew out.
It was an event that media mavens in Washington and New York praised profusely, which is something you’d expect from the people who live, operate, and socialize with the same people who give Biden advice.
The missed opportunities began on the road Biden did not take to get here.
The day after Biden’s event, I got into my vehicle and traced the steps Biden could have taken to get to here from his home in Delaware as someone who wants to reclaim Pennsylvania for the Democrats in the presidential election. He missed a chance to learn more about the very voters he needs to tip this state’s race in his direction.
Beginning in New Texas, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles from the Delaware state line along U.S. 222, it is worth exploring just what the former vice president might have observed, learned, and understood without once needing to stop and exit his vehicle.
Along U.S. 222, Biden would have observed a bucolic scene as he passed through the rolling farmlands of Lancaster County: tiny picturesque towns, lush farms, corn stalks, Amish buggies, and a scattering of Trump signs. Once in the city of Lancaster, he would have caught sight of the Dutch Wonderland amusement park, Panera Bread, Wawa, and Dutch Haven Shoo-Fly Pie Shop. If not going too fast, he also would see the cheerful red-covered bridge sitting along the road’s old alignment.
He then would have passed the city of York and the Harley Davidson plant and found his way through New Oxford to see the multitude of stores that make this town the “Antique Capital of Pennsylvania.” Maybe he could have slowed down to roll down his window and ask if they are still open. Or to ask passersby how business is.
Shortly afterward, he would have found himself surrounded on either side of U.S. 30 with the stone sentinels that stand guard on the battlefields where war ravaged the small Adams County farm town of Gettysburg. He could have maintained safe “social distancing” while still bearing witness to the sights of Little Round Top or Devil's Den or contemplating how Abraham Lincoln felt as he took to the makeshift stage to deliver a “few short words” to honor the fallen and give a torn country hope for the future in his now-famous address.
Biden would have been able to observe people walking along the battlefield and perhaps contemplate what is it that draws people to this site more 150 years after the battle to weep and pray and honor those who came before them.
And perhaps roll down the window and ask someone why?
Instead, there were no lessons learned.
From there, he would have passed through Chambersburg, then Caledonia State Park, then the small town of St. Thomas — where every other telephone pole is graced with an American flag.
Once he hit Bedford, he could have had his staff run into HeBrews Coffee House for a cup of coffee and a fresh bagel. The staff is masked, there is only outdoor seating, and their freshly ground and brewed coffee is divine. Or, between there and Everett, he could have grabbed an ice cream at the sundae-shaped Igloo ice cream shop and asked the young people working there how they were doing.
He surely would have noticed a flurry of Trump signs in several neighborhoods, often with one lone Biden sign — but with neighbors outside working in their yards and chatting back and forth, giving him several opportunities to ask why they could get along with such different points of view. Maybe he would see that the nastiness on social media isn’t what always happens in real life.
As he passed Shanksville, he could have stopped and offered a prayer for our country while contemplating again what he was doing on that Sept. 11 when the plane crashed here.
As he entered Ligonier, Latrobe, Irwin, and Greensburg, he would have been overwhelmed by the amount of support for Trump in signage: large ones, small ones, homemade ones, and also flags, so many flags. In a moment of reflection, he could have asked himself the question that both Republican and Democratic establishment types have never publicly asked: Why? Why did all of you reject us? What did we do wrong along the way, and how can we make it right?
Once he got to Pittsburgh, he should not have stood in front of a manufacturing plant that is in truth a robotic incubator, particularly if he was going to say something about fracking. Memo: If you now support fracking after repeatedly saying you did not, then stand in front of the cracker plant and show some authenticity.
Instead, he came across as a pandering politician who says one thing in one room and another later on, leaving the people most affected by his decision unmoved.
Biden needs to connect back with people because he comes across as a Washington strategist-created robot when he talks. He uses a teleprompter or notes with words likely crafted by his staff and determined by what the polls say — or by what Twitter says.
He now comes across as a man who has lost any of the personal touch that he once possessed; even if that’s not true, it is what he conveys.
Elections are about people, not about teleprompter speeches — not about who gets what to trend on Twitter, but people: their lives and stories and triumphs and failures. People want to know a candidate will risk going where they are to earn their votes. Ask them, and they’ll tell you that — because they believe they are risking everything to give you their support.
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