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— The chaser last Wednesday in Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) trip to this all-important county in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania came when the Republican vice presidential nominee said Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris can «go to hell» for her handling of the 2021 attack at Abbey Gate in the final days of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Harris, for her part, has claimed that she was the last person in the room when Biden made the decision that led to the death of 13 American soldiers.
It was a decision that Harris pointedly said she was «comfortable with.»
Vance said that if he was going to discuss any questions related to Abbey Gate, «It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. . She can go to hell.»
His remarks came in response to a reporter’s question about an alleged incident that occurred when former President Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery with family members of those who were killed in the attack.
While the «go to hell» quip made headlines, it was all the other things Vance did last Wednesday and the groundswell of support he received that are important in understanding where voters’ sentiments lie toward either ticket.
While the national audience read about Afghanistan, what was not written but will definitely be talked about by voters in Erie was Vance’s well-received off-the-cuff speech at Team Hardinger, a local logistics and trucking company, where he talked about the dignity of work and the importance of community.
It was a speech that connected so well with those in attendance that one woman wondered out loud where the heck his teleprompter was, to which Vance quipped, «Ma’am, I don’t need a teleprompter. I’ve actually got thoughts in my head, unlike Kamala Harris.»
There was also nothing written about his visit to Firestone’s Kitchen, located at Gordon’s Butcher Shop, where one of the cooks, Mark Spagel, gave the former Marine a beer after everyone around the bar asked Vance to join the group in a toast.
An ice cold beer he downed to cheers.
The standard narrative coming from the national media is that Vance is weird, that he doesn’t connect with Midwest voters, that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) is everybody’s father and coach, and «Oh look, he wears plaid», because that is what the national media is writing.
Or they are writing about one incident in which a woman became uncomfortable when Vance walked into a bakery and there were dozens of cameras on her because he was there.
These are the same blind spots in the media that were in place in 2016, and they really haven’t changed. If, by chance, Trump and Vance do win and the national media are again surprised, it is because they only wrote about Arlington and did not balance it out.
What they do not understand is that the majority of people who were at the events in Erie will be talking about what they experienced and heard there, not what happened in Arlington, Virginia.
The happy-warrior vibe Vance gives out comes from a place of gratitude, he told me in an interview.
«I’m here, and I’ve been given this incredible opportunity, and I’m going to try to make something of it, and the way to make something of it is to actually get out there and talk to people», he said.
