Davis Ducks Public, Media

By Bristol Herald Courier Editorial Board

Published: July 15, 2008

Rep. David Davis says he wants to take his message “directly to the people.”

At least, that was the explanation he gave for sending a prodigious amount of self-aggrandizing mail to his constituents on the taxpayers’ dime.
If this explanation is credible, then Davis should be seizing each and every opportunity to expound his views in the public square. He has not done so.

Davis has ducked debates, declined to fill out a questionnaire and avoided editorial boards. Even contacting him requires jumping an elaborate series of hurdles and dealing with less-than-helpful surrogates.

Which leads to an inescapable conclusion: Davis wants only controlled, scripted messages to reach the voters. He’s made a political calculation that he can win re-election based on the shallowest form of support – namely, that generated by slick advertisements, name recognition and identity politics.

Davis doesn’t want his constituents to probe the depths of his ideas and intellect. He doesn’t want them to know where he stands. He wants to wrap himself in the flag and in religion, and avoid the hard conversations.

It should not be enough. Voters should think twice about re-electing a man who is going to great lengths to avoid engaging in the marketplace of ideas.
In the coming weeks, this newspaper’s editorial board will be making endorsements in the Republican and Democratic primaries for the 1st Congressional District – the seat Davis holds.

As part of that process, we submitted questionnaires to Davis; his Republican challengers, Dr. Phil Roe and Michael “Mahmood” Sabri; and to the Democratic primary candidates, Michael Donihe and Rob Russell. We use these questionnaires as part of our editorial board process, but they also are posted verbatim to our Web site, TriCities.com, so voters can compare the candidates’ own words on weighty issues like the energy crisis, the economy and tax policy.

All of the candidates, except Davis, elected to share their ideas. Perhaps Davis is a fan of Mark Twain, who famously remarked that it was “better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Davis’ avoidance policy extends beyond the newspaper’s questionnaire. He hasn’t agreed to meet with our editorial board, and we don’t anticipate such a meeting taking place before the primary. In contrast, all four of his opponents sat down with us and shared their ideas for tackling the nation’s toughest problems. We left each meeting with an appreciation for their willingness to serve and respect for their insights.

Such a sharing of ideas is fundamental to our democracy.

Of course, Davis has the right to snub the newspaper (and by extension, the voters), but we wish he’d be a man about it and do it directly. Instead of politely declining to answer the questionnaire or meet with the editorial board, Davis’ surrogates complained that we made the request through the wrong channel. So we tried again.

The Davis camp outlined two additional contact procedures – one involving a phone call to a campaign worker who didn’t identify himself until pressed and wouldn’t say where the campaign office was located. Helpfully, he told us he wasn’t responsible for scheduling and declined to identify the responsible party. He added that he would “answer no questions, do no scheduling and provide no information.” Later, we were told to fill out a contact form on Davis’ campaign Web site. We did that, too, but we still haven’t heard from Davis.

It’s not just us. Davis has yet to share a stage with any of his challengers anywhere in the district, despite calls for debate from the other candidates and constituents. A forum planned by the Johnson City Press editorial board was scrapped after Davis backed out of it.

We would have held the forum and allowed Donihe, Roe, Russell and Sabri to debate an empty chair. It would have been an appropriate metaphor for Davis’ service to the 1st District.